Summer is for easy projects

At long last, my poppy-print version of Burda 4-2014-124 is done. Let me say right here that my next few projects are going to be purposely simple. Or at least not ridiculously complicated.

I do love this poppy fabric. You can read in this post how I fell hard for it . . . but, man, was it difficult to work with. Seam allowances that frayed almost to the seamline before I could get to them, little shredded areas that materialized if the fabric so much as hung over a corner of my cutting mat—this one had me gnashing my teeth. Well, not literally, but you know what I mean. Okay, enough with the qualifications.

I think I might be able to wear this dress in real life if I just sit quietly in a corner somewhere.

The pattern itself is a good one, though not a quick make. There is a complete underdress (same pattern pieces for the six-gore skirt, different pieces, including spaghetti straps, for the bodice) sewn inside the outer dress. With the French seams that I used throughout, this meant a lot of sewing and pressing. Looking at the photo above, seems I need to press that left front skirt seam a little better, ahem.

If you look closely at this next photo, you can see how the finest sewing-machine needle I have, which I changed out several times during this project by the way, still left little "bites" in the fabric.

I made a number of changes to the pattern. For one, I lengthened it by over two inches (but compare to the magazine photo; I'm sure that model is at least as tall as I am??). More important, I left off everything that I thought of as frippery. Frilly details just do not work well on me, so I substituted a simple edging for the piping, and omitted the lace on the underdress bodice, the topstitched batting under the neckband, and the shirring on the sleeves (in fact, I ended up leaving off the sleeves entirely and finishing the armholes with bias binding). I do feel that the part of the underdress bodice that peeks out looks a little plain, so maybe keeping the lace trim there would have been good.

Here's how the neckband looks up close with my changes:

Again because of the fragile nature of the fabric, I had a heck of a time figuring out a way to hem the skirt without it falling apart on me as I went. I ended up using my serger to make a rolled edge, and I'm happy enough with it.

Nature notes:

Photos are from last month, so not brand new, but I still want to give these turtle mamas a little appreciation. This sweet painted turtle was laying her eggs in our front yard one day in early June.

And she brought her sister along to lay her eggs!

The same day, as I walked down the driveway to get our mail, I came across this snapping turtle looking for a good egg-laying place. She is much bigger than the painted ones, like a large dinner plate, and can easily take off a finger if you're silly enough to present it to her.

GO TURTLES!

Second MMM14 roundup

Here's a little summary of this last week's Me-Made-May 14.

Debbie Bliss's Lara cardigan, in her alpaca silk yarn. I wore this fairly often during our three years in the Midwest, usually pinning it closed with a brooch that I have lost track of. I pulled it out of the sweater drawer on this chilly damp Sunday morning and found that it is still cozy and warm.

This is the tunic top from Vogue 8914. I used a bit of a multicolored silk/wool panel fabric that I had in the stash. This make has always seemed a little off to me, but it got a surprising number of favorable comments on the MMM Flickr page. The fabric feels good against my skin, so as my son says, That would be a good thing to wear around the house, mom.

This skirt is a favorite, from an old Burda magazine pattern. Blogged here.

Doesn't look too bad in this photo, but this top (Vogue 7717) is never going to work for me. The fabric is so lightweight that it catches and rides up on whatever I am wearing underneath. That's okay, I can tell that the pattern is good for other fabrics. The pants (Vogue 2064) in ponte knit are pretty much like yoga pants—again, good for around the house.

This Friday's theme was the color blue. So this was kind of a throw-away day for me.

Still having fun with this project, but getting decent photos every day is tough. 

Nature note:

This is prime time for birds migrating through and showing up for the season in the northeastern United States. Though I don't know much about birding, I have been out and about with my binoculars, and aside from the usual suspects (including the beautiful rose-breasted grosbeaks), I was lucky enough to see a northern goshawk yesterday, doing an elaborate courtship display, shrieking and diving and all, high in the air above the woods next to our house.

Pretty poppies

Lots of photos ahead; if you don't like poppy prints, look away now.

In mid-March, my husband and I made a quick weekend trip to New York. (Digression: I love our house in the woods of New Hampshire, but I lived in NYC from 1986 to 1992 and have never really gotten over it. At least once a week I have a sweet dream in which I find myself living there again. Visiting every now and then makes me very happy.) We packed a lot into a day and a half: the Trend-ology and Fashions of the 1930s exhibits at FIT, Charles Marville's photographs of Paris at the Met, a Broadway play in previews, gallery hopping in Chelsea, an absinthe at a tavern on St. Mark's Place, some real Chinese food, and . . . a trip to Mood Fabrics, of course.

My plan was to find a soft cotton print, maybe a floral, for Vogue 1350. I looked with no special color or print in mind, thinking I would just know it when I found it, and then, bam, there it was. I could feel the tag tucked way down inside the tube and got my husband with his long fingers to fish it out. Turned out that was the wrong end of the tube—no price or content information, just a small brown piece of paper with Oscar de la Renta printed on it.

So later, at home, I searched for Oscar de la Renta poppy print online and found my exact fabric made up into dresses.

Well, maybe not my exact fabric. The red print dress is in cotton stretch, and the yellow is silk twill. My fabric is a cotton/silk blend, no stretch. With the information that these dresses were from 2012, I looked up de la Renta's spring 2012 fashion show, and there was my exact fabric again.

Okay, again, not so exact, but it's the same general idea. Let's take a closer look:

Can you see that the leaves are appliqued/embroidered, and the poppies have frills sticking out around the edges? What I bought seems to be one of several "flat" versions of this gorgeously intricate three-dimensional fabric. I'll take it!

I cut a square and gently, gently squeezed some mildly sudsy water through to see how it would react. It didn't shrink, but look at the fraying on those edges. Since it is such a lovely fabric, I will call it fragile rather than flimsy.

My muslin of V1350 came out nicely but on the snug side. (I usually go down a size in Vogue because of the large amount of wearing ease but didn't do so this time; when they say "close-fitting bodice" they mean it.) I've decided to save this pattern for a sturdier fabric that can hold me in where I need to be held in, haha! Seriously, I thought the poppy fabric would work better in a dress with more flow to the skirt, so I'm going instead with #124 from the April 2014 Burda magazine.

My version will omit the batting, piping, lace edging, and the shirring on the sleeves, as ruffles and frills just do not look right on me. I'm still agonizing over experimenting with replacements for the sleeves. Same pattern piece but droopy instead of shirred? Little half-moon cap sleeves? Two-piece short sleeves cadged from another pattern? Leave the sleeves off altogether? I'll need to tone up and tan my arms; fortunately my last post worked and spring has showed up.

A nature/garden note:

This snap out my sewing room window shows why we will have very few flowers this spring. The azaleas and rhododendrons have lost all their tips; even the crocuses are just nibbled stubs poking from the ground. I haven't been able to bring myself to shoo this group of three does and two teenage deer away often enough (especially because one of the does has only three legs), and they have taken up residence. Disaster for the garden.

Getting started

For years my mild obsession with sewing has taken the form of lurking around other people's sewing blogs, fabric shopping at every possible opportunity, poring over pattern magazines and new pattern collections, and, oh yeah, occasionally actually sewing something. In the hope that documenting what I do will remind me that what I want to do is sew more and sew better, I am jumping on this bandwagon right now.

I'll be keeping it simple until I get the hang of this, so please bear with me. Speaking of simple, one of my most frequently used patterns is top D from the ancient Simplicity 5970.

Want to see some more of those?

These take just a bit of fabric and are easy to throw on in hot, humid New England summers.

But that is not all I aspire to, oh no. Sometimes my experiments have worked out nicely, but more often, and seemingly in direct relation to how much work I've put in, I have ended up with a piece of clothing that I'm just not going to wear. This will be a record of my attempt to turn that around. Stay tuned for a look at some of my past and future efforts.

Thanks for reading!

Nature notes:

Two painted turtles were crisscrossing the grass in front of the house yesterday, looking for a place to lay their eggs.

This is a photo from last year; didn't get one yesterday.

I hope our eastern phoebe finds a mate soon, because he is screeching from dawn to dusk.

(I wanted to insert an audio link to the phoebe's call here; so much to learn . . .)