McCall 6069, Knit Cowl Dress

More stashbusting!  It had actually been a really long time since I made an easy knit dress.  I had forgotten how quick and instant gratification they are!

I made M6069 for the first time in the turquoise polka-dot border print quite a while ago, in 2010.  I don't *love* that dress.  The double cowl is awkward to wear, and I made it a little too long but hemming it shorter would interfere with the border effect.  When I passed it up again last week, I decided it was time to rotate it out of the closet.  I contemplated my stash and ran across this polka dot knit that seemed the logical replacement.

I have a love/hate relationship with black and white.  I love the way it looks on other people, and any time I see someone in a really great black and white print dress I want to make one immediately.  But then when I'm getting dressed in the morning, I want to wear a bright color.  The thought of wearing funereal black, even with some white in it, is too much for me, especially right when I wake up (I am not a morning person).  I rarely wear my black and white pieces; I literally never wear all black.

This dress may have broken the spell.  I think the key for me is that the print is black-on-white; the larger proportion of white keeps it bright and fresh.  Prints that are white-on-black, with black the predominant color, feel too somber to me.  Of course, the first time I wore it I met some friends after work for happy hour and to watch one of their husband's band perform.  Of the six of us, five were in black and white.  I'm not kidding.  Two stripes, two polka dots, and one print.  I felt like a noncomformist, just like all my friends.














When I was packing for Portugal last Fall I unexpectedly found myself with time to make one more piece to go in the suitcase.  So I inventoried my packing plan and found that what I needed was a nice dress that would travel well but really sparkle at night and would be suitable for cooler weather.  I was surprised I didn't already have anything that fit the bill, but my knit dresses are generally pretty casual and my dressy dresses don't pack well.

This pattern came to mind, and I had some luscious silk jersey from Michael's Fabrics.  I used my TNT t shirt pattern to draft a plain back and made it up.  It came out gorgeous!  (If I do say so myself.)  The luxurious fabric, the saturated colors, the flattering shape.  When I finished it, I thought, "This casual elegance is exactly what I want for my entire wardrobe."   I don't know that I've managed to effectuate that thought, but I still love the dress.



Details on that dress are using the serger to attach clear elastic to the wrong side of the back neckline and then turning under and twin-needling for a neat finish, and cuffs on the sleeves (only because I didn't have enough fabric to cut the sleeves the length I wanted so I had to add scrap cuffs!).

When I drafted the back for the silk jersey version, I somehow made it an inch too short at the waistline.  WTF?  So I had to shorten the front to match.  This turned out to be a fortuitous error, as the dress is much more flattering on me with the waistline raised by an inch.  The sloppy waistline location is part of what I didn't like about the turquoise version.  So I retained that for this version.

Since I'd already drafted the back, it was really easy to make the latest iteration.  I finished in under four hours, and the only trouble I had was the shoulder length of the front and the back not matching up.  I was annoyed with myself for doing such a poor job of drafting the back piece.  Well, when I pulled the turquoise version off the hanger to put it in the giveaway pile I remembered that I was supposed to put some pleats in the front shoulder to take up that extra width.  D'oh!  The cowl lays fine without them, luckily.



My secret for cowl necks is to extend the self-facing as long as you have fabric for. My ideal preference is for the facing to extend all the way below the armscye, but that takes up a huge amount of fabric and I didn't have enough here (and it would have required drafting the facing piece).  Here you can see how much fabric I added to this project.  I also caught the cowl facing into the armscye for an inch or two so it would stay folded toward the front.  As a result, the cowl stays firmly in place in wearing.  There is no chance of all of that fabric flipping to the outside. 

I used the flutter sleeve from Burda 03-2008-113 for a little shoulder coverage from the sun without any added heat retention.  To make it really easy, I didn't hem the sleeve.  This jersey is lightweight without much body, and the thought of trying to wrestle a hem onto the circular curve was too much.  The lower hem was easy, though, as it is on the crossgrain and I used a line of dots as a guide to get it perfectly straight for my twin-needle hem.



I added a badge hanging loop to the waistline.  I am so into this right now!




The downside of the black-on-white print is that the fabric is slightly sheer.  I lined the skirt part only with tricot from Golden D'Or in Dallas.  The front bodice is essentially self-lined with the long cowl and with a flesh-tone bra the back bodice doesn't show anything.




This isn't super-old stash, but it's been lurking around for 3 years.  I got it from Fabric.com in May 2010.  In all, I used 1 3/4 yard black and white polka dot and a little over half yard (0.58 yard) of the tricot.

I'm so happy with this little dress!  I don't think it will get passed over like its predecessor, and I already know the style travels well.  I just need someplace exotic to take it...

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

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I used up all the full length yardage, which is the criterion for the stash contest (as I understand it).  But I had enough scraps left for 2 pairs of panties.  Or so I thought, until I looked at the bottom layer front piece.  You can see at left that there was a big divot in one of the side seams.  Curses!

I contemplated for a moment.  The missing part was too large to absorb into the 1/4" seam allowance of my perfectly fitted custom pattern.  Time for a random lace insertion!










I put the scalloped side of some stretch lace over the side with the jagged seam line, extending about 1/2 inch beyond the missing fabric.  I zigzagged over the scallops, and then trimmed away the polka dotted fabric underneath.









Next, I laid the pattern back over the piece and trimmed away the lace, leaving a perfectly shaped piece of fabric.  I constructed the panties as usual.

After all that, I truly did have only scraps remaining.  Well, scraps, a cute dress, and two new pairs for the drawer. The only downside of these is that it amuses me greatly to wear unmentionables I've made out of leftover fabric with the dress they match, but I'm afraid these will show through the skirt, despite my tricot lining. So I have to wear them with unmatching clothes. *sigh*

Bicycle Bloomers

Most of my biking is casual city biking for transportation.  I am in a skirt or dress 95% of the time in winter and 100% of the time in summer.  To keep the creepers slightly at bay (people still try to stare up your skirt, no matter what, ugh), I always have something on underneath, usually bike shorts.  Bike shorts are fine for winter, but for summer when every little bit of extra clothing counts, I've been wanting to make bloomers.  I finally got around to them for the Seersucker Social, woot!




I remembered seeing an elastic waist short pattern recently so I pulled out Burda 03-2012-114 (available for download from BurdaStyle at the link).  They would require a little redrafting because the front laps over the back to create a petal-effect at the side hem, while I just wanted a plain side seam.











So I compared the pattern pieces with Burda 06-2011-111 (you have to scroll through to get to the shorts in the German Burda archive, f you very much BurdaStyle), which I made previously as my Adventure Shorts, and found that the front of the elastic waist shorts was about 3 inches wider at the side seam, while the back piece was the same size.  Odd.  The Adventure Shorts fit well, so I just pinned them to my fabric (a cotton/poly batiste Ikea Knoppa sheet) and cut the front 3 inches wider at the side seam.  Any pattern that closes with a zipper will need extra room at the side seams when converted to an elastic waist so that you can pull them over the hips.

The fit was just what I was looking for.





I added about 1.5 inches at the top/waistline in cutting the front and back, as the original pattern is drafted with a waistband.  But after stitching them together, I realized that I wanted the bloomers to sit well below the waist so they would not add bulk when worn under dresses with a fitted waist.  I ended up chopping them down to where they were probably the height they were originally drafted.

I cut them with quite a long inseam, but ended up cutting them to a very short 2 inch inseam.  If my lace was a narrower, I would have made them longer.

I finished the lower edge with a serger rolled hem and then stitched my lace in place.  I got this cotton lace from Kashi at Metro Textiles several years ago for $1/yd (last seen in this 2009 project).  It's lovely but not at all durable so I don't know how long these bloomers will last.  If you make these, avoid polyester lace, which is very scratchy.  Even the cotton lace is not that comfortable for walking long distances off the bike.

I finished the waistline with an elastic casing (leaving the darts/pleats in the pattern unsewn), and used elastic thread in the bobbin to shir the leg openings.  To make it easy to tell front from back, I sewed a little bow at the center front waist.

These bloomers are only good for short city rides--they provide no padding, obviously, and they also do not protect your inner thigh from the saddle as they are too short for that.  But they are quite cool!

All photos are here.  Sorry for the disembodied photos with bike shorts underneath--I expect to spend the next several days blocking flickr nasties even with these thoroughly unexciting pics.

My Latest Fashion

Ooooooh yeah. This is going to be all over the runway for Spring. You heard it here first.

So, I ran too hard at the gym. Really. I was in boxing class and we were doing a partner drill where your partner rolls up a towel the long way and loops it around your waist. Then they stand behind you and hold onto the ends, squatting down to give the most resistance. Then you cartoon run and try to pull them across the floor. This is much harder than it sounds. My partner is someone I've worked with before and she is about the same size as me. So I'm running, running and she isn't moving. Well, come on! I know I can do better than that. So I redoubled my efforts and then I felt something pop in my left calf. Bad.

I tried to put weight on it, couldn't. Felt like I was going to faint, then like I was going to puke, then like I was going to faint again. Luckily, none of that happened. The gym employees literally carried me out of the gym in a fireman's carry (I made them put me down before we got outside because no cab would pick me up if they were carrying me).

I went to the emergency room where I sat in the waiting room in howling pain for four hours (I was doing yoga breaths and tapping the other foot to try to deal with it and the other people waiting kept looking at me askance). I went back. They did an X-ray. Then they said, "By the way, an X-ray will only tell us if the bone is broken. It's not." Well, duh. They said that maybe my calf muscle had torn, maybe detached from the bone, but my Achilles tendon was fine (huge relief).

They put me in a cast. I spent a day on crutches and wow, do they suck. I had to ask a co-worker to carry my lunch from the microwave to my office because you can't hold anything! I have to flash my badge to get back to the hallway where my office is after using the bathroom, and I couldn't figure out the timing of flashing the badge and then hopping over sideways to open the door and then push through it with the crutches before the time expired and the door locked again.

I came home and traced a pattern while standing on one leg. Don't recommend. Also not recommended: making meusli while standing on one leg.

Went to the orthopedist this morning. The "good" news is that the muscle is still attached to the bone and mostly intact, just a really bad pull. I am in the boot for four weeks and we'll re-evaluate a few days before I leave for my long anticipated vacation. He warned I may still be in the boot in Turkey. Oh yeah. But I am back on two feet walking approximately five inches per minute and I can't tell you how good it is. I live in a third floor walkup. Hopping up to the third floor is really quite excruciating.

My first thought, after "I think I'm going to vomit" was "Thank goodness it's not my sewing leg!!!!" Since I won't be going to the gym for a while, I'm going to have to make sure I use that time to sew rather than sit around snacking. Don't know how much I'll be modeling though!

Can I just say, thank goodness I made all those dresses I can just pull over my head!

Current output is three pairs of much needed panties. These are made from the same knockoff H&M pattern as the last set. I determined that lace isn't great for the leg openings (not strong enough or good enough recovery), so I ordered some black picot elastic from Sew Sassy, the source of the stretch laces. Love the picot elastic look and will be using it to trim a neckline soon, I think. The legs on the panties look wavy when sitting flat, but fit perfectly when worn. I already purged three old pairs from the drawer, which felt good.

Sooooo, does anybody know any cardio exercises that can be done sitting or standing stationary? I can do most strength exercises, including even shallow squats and dead lifts, but figuring out how to burn calories is going to be my biggest challenge.

Unmentionables and Stashoholism Confessional

I have been ordering fabric like a mad woman lately! But I have also been sewing like crazy lately and the fabrics have been good stash fabrics (if you accept that there is such a thing)--silk cottons and now wool. I ordered this fabric really just to make it to $35 at Fabric.com for free shipping, but when will I not need a good quality stretch wool? I pre-shrunk it by wetting it in the shower with hot water and hanging it to dry. Cidell and I were talking about how much we love the smell of wool. This smelled so good!

The real reason for my order was the pattern. Fabric.com was having a 20% off sale and I just couldn't hold out any longer for a 2-for-1 deal at HotPatterns. I've never used a HotPatterns before, but I loved this one as soon as it came out and people have been making nice things out of it. My serger is gray right now and I have a list of gray projects to complete (including a dress of the stretch wool), but when I change it to red this pattern is on the list! Probably won't happen until after the holidays, alas.

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I also ordered two sets of a 30 yard stretch lace assortment from SewSassy. That is one set rolled onto cards, and one set loose, to give you an idea. I really don't know why I ordered the bundles. Well, I mean I do know why I ordered the bundles--because I like the surprise element. It's like getting a sewing present. But in reality, I pretty much wear black underwear every day because (tmi) I spot 24/7/365 and anything else gets ruined on the first wear. So I should have just ordered a crapload of black and of course the bundles didn't come with any black at all!

I was pleased with the quality and service, however. I like that you can choose USPS shipping because USPS is the only delivery I can get at my house and I hate sending all my packages to work. The shipping charge was totally reasonable and it came super quickly! I will probably go back and order some black picot lingerie elastic for legs, and can use the light colored laces at the waist.

I had actually made some panties before ordering the lace, if you can believe it! I bought some H&M underwear a few weeks ago when I had forgotten to pack any and ended up really liking the style. I prefer a low waist, full coverage rear, separate crotch piece, and lower cut legs so they don't ride up and they fit the bill perfectly. Of course, the downside of my preference for full coverage is that I cannot really make them out of "scraps." This takes a not insignificant chunk of yardage, around 3/8 yard.

The only thing about the H&M panties was I had bought a size too small. Luckily, I have the technology to correct that! So I laid tracing paper over them and traced them with a pencil (my pattern is not symmetrical, but the resulting panties are fine so I haven't bothered to clean it up), added a bit to the sides, and voila! I have what I hope is a TNT panty pattern. I won't really know if it's TNT until the Spring, though. You can't tell if panties are going to ride up if you're wearing tights over them. So I feel like I shouldn't make *too* many of these until I know for sure!

Anyway, I made the prototypes using clear elastic and a twin needle. They fit well and wear well (although I can't really wear them since they're not black), but the clear elastic feels chintzy. Also, the allowances roll out out and expose the clear elastic, which again is not uncomfortable but just isn't cute. So I decided that I was allowed to order the stretch lace, since I had demonstrated that I actually would sew panties.

So much better, right? They look better at any rate. Can't actually wear them because they're not all black. I switched Pills several months ago and now I have a few days' window where I don't spot so I have to wear all my cute underwear on those days. I just overlapped the lace at the seams, and one leg already had one of those long strings you pull from all the way around the lace, so I'm going to have to figure out how to finish those ends. I guess just zigzag them in place.

Next time my serger is threaded in black (and I have black picot elastic in hand) I'm going to have to do a black panty-sewing extravaganza. They're quick to cut and assemble, but it does take some time to pin the lace/elastic around the legs and waist so each pair takes about 40 minutes. I thought it would be like popcorn, but it's more like gummy worms.

So I guess I'm making my own underwear now. But there's still no way I'm going to attempt a bra.