I'm Not Dead

Just crazy-busy, unlike the women in this pattern illustration:




I feel that these ladies, if not ladies of absolute leisure, spend their copious free time in those stereotypical pursuits of reading novels and eating bon-bons. Plus, hairstyles like the ones here require tremendous maintenance and make me think that the most strenuous thing they do all day is put up with pudgy, sweaty men winking at them and calling them "Sugar."

That hair just doesn't say "day job" to me. Unless you're Dolly Parton, in which case you get to call OTHER people "Sugar," while working three times as hard as anyone else in heels three times as high. That woman amazes me. (And her singin' ain't bad, neither.)

Do I sound jealous of these women on the pattern envelope? I may be, but only of the ruffles. I covet those ruffles. (And maybe the bon-bons. I've been in California a MONTH and have had NO See's Candies. That's just wrong.)

If you think this dress would magically transform you into such a creature, you're in luck, because Wendy at PatternStash is offering 20% off everything today and tomorrow. You can use the money you save for more bon-bons. (Or a fall. Whichever.)

Work In Progress: Gray Ruffle Dress

So this is what I worked on this weekend. I'm not *thrilled* with it, and so I figured I'd put it up for your comments.

What's wrong:

-- the skirt was originally about 3" longer, which was WAY TOO LONG, Texas-compound long, but I'd already sewn on the ruffle, which meant I had to take it up from the waist. Which meant resewing the seams on either side of the center front and back piece (had already put in the pockets, too, so I didn't want to resew those seams).

-- I wanted to match the darts with the center front seams so I had to ease the front into the skirt and so it wrinkled. I think if I stay it with some twill tape it will stay stretched, but I haven't done that yet.

-- I thought I was ready for an elegant gray dress, monochrome and understated and all that, but now that I have one I think it needs some color. Where? I could sew middy braid around the neck and hem ... or, you know, I could just wear a yellow cardigan over it (which is what I'll probably end up doing anyway).

The weirdness on the right-hand side of the picture (left-hand side of the dress) is from pinning it -- I haven't put in the zipper yet. Nor have I sewn down the sleeve self-facings.

This dress came about because I (shock, horror!) managed to LOSE the pieces for this pattern:



I don't know where they went; all I know is that I can't find them. Arrgh.

So I took a six-gore skirt from a pattern I had NOT lost the pieces from (McCalls 3036, which I don't have a link to right now), did some rudimentary math and some pattern-piece surgery, and put together the skirt. Then I just slapped on the bodice from McCalls 8858 again.

Here's a few more pics:





Anyway, am I not thrilled about this dress because it's inherently not a thriller, or am I not thrilled about this dress because I had to do too much fussing with it? (Actually, the more I look at it the more fun I think it will be to wear, if I try not to overthink it too much. And if I finally wear a solid-colored dress, perhaps I could finally wear some of the colorful jewelry I've collected ...)

Thoughts?

Mollie Parnis pattern

I know, I know, I said "no more patterns" a while back, but frankly, I don't think any of you thought I meant it. I certainly didn't. And how could I hold to that resolution, when confronted by this pattern, from eBay seller stevijean?




It's by Mollie Parnis, who I admit I knew nothing about before googling her. (And I still don't know that much, except I know I like this dress.)

I didn't think I was a big ruffle person (parsed either as "person who likes big ruffles" or "person who really likes ruffles") but for some reason this dress just seemed really FUN. Like, make it in blue gingham fun. Like, laugh a lot while wearing it fun. Just plain FUN fun.

And I think it would also be charming in a nice thin black batiste, very summery yet not too girlish (despite the ruffles) worn with a black grosgrain ribbon belt. And if I could find dark-gray-on-black seersucker? THAT would be perfect.

The only thing I don't like about this pattern is how deep the vee is in the back, but I'm pretty sure I can fix that in the cutting-out.

Sorry no dress yesterday; it was my first day teaching (a class on dictionaries at Northwestern) and I wanted to be overprepared. (I think I missed overprepared and skewed right into "brain dump" but we'll see.) I'm also going to be scarce here until at least next Tuesday; we're taking off tomorrow for a family visit and I'm toying with the idea of Not Bringing My Laptop Along. It's scary (well, not too scary, I can check email on my phone) but the point of vacation is to vacate, yes?