Guess what I've been doing. Sewing! The last sewing kick I was on started four years ago when it was all mask-making all the time, and it ended that September with three pairs of flamingo pajama pants. But I've been thinking lately about sheath dresses and breezy summer tops and knowing my handmade wardrobe could use a little makeover. So...
I cleaned off my sewing machine, which was no small feat. It had spent the last four years gathering dust at the foot of my bed, and let me tell you, it gathered dust really well. If you ever wonder why I let four years go by between sewing sessions, it can usually be explained by the effort it takes to set up and break down the sewing area.
I sew in the dining room, so first I have to clean up in there, make sure there's room on the table for the machine and the tabletop ironing board, and clean off the back cabinet so I can spread out my fabric there for cutting. And once that's done, I have to dust off the sewing machine, and the buckets of patterns, threads, and notions, and lug all of that down from my bedroom to the dining room. The iron and ironing board need to come downstairs, too. It's a whole thing.
A whole thing that then needs to happen in reverse when I'm finished with the sewing. I bet I would sew a lot more if I set up a permanent spot for it like I finally did for my clay stuff. But I'm running out of unused nooks that I can stick another desk in. So for now, when I want to sew stuff, it's really just the middle cool thing in a list of otherwise undesirable tasks:
- clean up
- lug everything downstairs
- sew stuff 🥳
- lug everything back upstairs
- clean up
Anyway, I have managed to clean up, do some lugging, and sew some stuff in the last couple of weeks, which I think is worth celebrating. Time will tell how long it takes me to do the backwards lugging and cleaning, but hopefully I won't let it sit until Christmas as I've been known to do in the past.
Would you like to see what I made?
It started with an idea to turn my Barefoot Summer Sheath pattern into an ankle length dress, perfect for effervescent Summer entertaining (of which I do precisely none, but that's not the point). This is a pattern that I made myself in 2014, when I took apart a well-fitting dress to reverse-engineer it. Five years later, I tried to add some breathing room to accommodate a bit of middle-age spread, but I did that without actually re-drawing the pattern. So now, here we are a full decade after making the original pattern, and I wanted to use it yet again, preserving the changes I made previously, but also adding some extra length at the bottom.
So, I retraced the pattern, taking into account the little bit of extra fabric I wanted in the chest and hips (without accidentally also adding it to the neck as I did five years ago 🙈). And then I made a "muslin" out of an old sheet that I had laying around. Coincidentally, it was the same sheet that I made the original dress out of all those years ago, which is kind of funny.
I made the muslin, tried it on, it was fine. But here's the thing about me and dresses: I just don't like to wear them anymore. I wore dresses and skirts all the time a decade ago. And I wore them once in a while when I was working in an office. But ever since we got the work-from-home order in 2020 and never went back, I just have zero desire to wear a dress. Dresses require you to sit in a ladylike fashion. Bleh. Dresses require you to shave your legs. Bleh. Dresses are just too much trouble. So, I took this muslin and cut eleven inches off of the bottom. And now It's a tunic. And that I will wear.
(Though maybe not on super hot days? This vintage sheet is not as breathable as I would like...)
Emboldened by how easy that was, I took another dress I never wore and gave it the same treatment. This one is kind of funny because it started as a Dress No 1, and I cut it down to a sheath width because I was too self conscious to wear it with all of the extra fabric floating around. And then I never wore that either. It's taken cutting away more than half of the original fabric for me to make it a regular part of my Summer wardrobe. I only finished it a week ago, and I've already worn it more times as a shirt than I ever did as a dress.
Anyway, back to what started this whole thing. An ankle-length dress. I figured this could be a nice exception to the "I never wear dresses" thing. My legs are only visible through slits, so if I wanted to only shave to just below my knee, I could and nobody would know. Except you, now. And there's no chance of accidentally flashing someone in a dress like this, so I don't have to mind how I sit. I wore this dress to a party last weekend, and it was comfortable and relaxed, just as I'd hoped.
For this, I took the newly-traced sheath pattern, and added fifteen inches to the length. I also made the width at the bottom an inch more than the width was at the original hemline. As for slits, I made those 18 inches up from the bottom one on each side, and I used this tutorial to make sure I didn't just wing it and end up with obviously homemade abominations going up my legs.
I'm really pleased with the way this came out. Maybe I need to go to (or host) some Summer parties...
After that success, I went to Joann and found some lightweight summer plaid fabric for 70% off. I paid something like $3.50/yard for this stuff. It was amazing. And while all of that fabric was in the washing machine, I did something I haven't done in ages...
I spontaneously dumped every piece of clothing out of my closet and tried them on one by one. Pictured above is just the stuff I have sewn myself over the years! Anyway, I donated anything that didn't fit me well or make me feel good, and that included several handmade pieces. Usually I hold on to the handmade stuff for sentimental reasons, but I was feeling particularly ruthless. And I was also really tired of having zero wiggle room in a closet that was bursting with things I just never wear.
After that little exercise, I looked at my remaining handmade tops to see what style I wanted to sew more of.
I decided I wanted more sleeves. That meant banging out a couple of the old standby Simplicity 3835 elastic-neck tops. The first one went really well.
The second one, well, I'll let the wandering lines of the plaid tell that story. Suffice it to say that it would have behooved me to iron the fabric before cutting, and to also pay even a little bit of attention to whether I had anything whatsoever lined up at all. This shirt is a disaster. But I bought so much of that cheap fabric that I decided to make a pair of shorts to go with it, and now I have a nice, lightweight pajama set. Lemons, meet lemonade.
I didn't relish the thought of modeling my PJ shorts. And they're in the laundry anyway. So you don't get to see them, but I will tell you that I used my Fancypants pattern for them, and I made them about mid-thigh length. Full disclosure, I didn't actually wear the wonky shirt with them. Even with matching shorts I still don't like it. But I really love the PJ shorts. Go figure.
For the last plaid, I thought maybe I'd go back to the sleeveless thing, so I did another one using my cropped sheath pattern. And this time I ironed the fabric first. And made sure the lines were all straight before I cut anything. Efforts that I think paid off.
One thing I don't like: I don't like the way the binding around the neckline is leaning forward instead of flat against my neck. Do any of you know how to keep that from happening? I struggle with that often when I use bias binding.
Anyway, that is everything! I'm mostly happy with these, bias binding leanings and woefully misaligned plaids aside. But I think my favorite is the green plaid shirt that I repurposed from Dress No. 1. (it's the second top I showed up there). My preference boils down to the neckline. The neck of Dress No. 1 is slightly higher than the Barefoot Summer Sheath neck, and I like it better. I wish I'd come to that realization before sewing two tops and a dress with that lower neck, but I'll survive. I am going to adjust my sheath pattern, though, so future tops and/or dresses will be more to my liking.
To be honest, I think every one of these sleeveless tops looks better with a fine gauge cotton sweater over it, but that's not happening while the weather continues to be brutally hot. And while it's hot, I can appreciate how breezy and cool these shirts are without any extra layer on top.
I may put the sewing machine away this weekend. Or I may finally sew a big pile of gingham summer napkins with fabric I've had set aside for that purpose for the last decade. We'll see.
How about you? Sew anything good lately?
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