Easter Earth Day Dress and Perky Young Girls From the 60's

Here is last week's sewing project. I did not originally plan this as an Easter dress but as I was working on it I thought about wearing it on Easter but I changed my mind because the weather was a bit cool. To start with, I must say that I do like it even though I'm about to complain a lot.

The pattern is Simplicity 1882. It's one of their "Amazing Fit" patterns. The fit is not amazing. I can accept partial responsibility for that but not the entire responsibility. It has separate bodice pieces corresponding to different bra cup sizes so I used the one for my size and it was too big. I made some adjustment but size wasn't the only problem. I have seen tutorials for full bust adjustment and for small bust adjustment but I have never seen a tutorial for how to adjust princess seams for girls that live a bit farther south than the girls the pattern was designed for. (if you know what I mean) With most patterns this is not much of a problem for me but this pattern was designed for exceptionally perky young girls that live way way up north. (if you know what I mean) I had an epiphany (I like that word, "epiphany") to try it with the weird, pointy bra that I never wear because it looks too 60's. That actually did improve the fit, somewhat, and doesn't make this dress look too terribly pointy.

Another thing about this pattern... The description on the front of the envelope says, "Softly Pleated A-Line Skirt." This is beyond misleading; it's an outright fib. The skirt has no pleats. It has darts. No problem. I made an honest pattern of it and sewed the pleats I expected in place of darts.

Now for the good points. I love the pockets. The yoke and pocket is a single piece that folds. Now I know how I'm going to add pockets to the fake pocket Vogue. It was worth getting this pattern just for that. I did have to add a couple of inches of depth to these pockets because they would have been too shallow to be of much use but that was very easy to do.

The fabric is quilting cotton, which I use for dresses all the time. It worked okay but I wouldn't recommend it for this pattern because the extra thicknesses of fabric for the collar and pocket trim make the seams in these areas rather bulky. It's okay but I think most seamstresses would likely prefer a lighter fabric.

I put the zipper on the side instead of the back, which means I could have eliminated the center back seam but I didn't think of it. This is the second time I've done a side zipper and I'm totally sold on them.

Overall, I really do like this dress though I think my favorite parts are the fabric and the pockets. I don't know if I will use this pattern again or not. Aside from the fit issues I really prefer a bit fuller skirt. That of course is easy to change and perhaps I could figure out how to fix the fit but why bother? There are so many other patterns waiting for my attention.

Something Neue

I just got my first Neue Mode pattern and there are a couple of surprises. First, the envelope is huge. It doesn't fit in the little plastic drawer/bin where I keep my patterns. The other surprise is that there are no directions. That wasn't a total surprise because the order confirmation email said that I would have to download the "sewing guide" and included a link to this PDF. That's it. One page.

I'm not worried about it. I've been sewing a long time and rarely look at the directions anyway. I'm sure I can figure it out. But if you're new to sewing and are not particularly adventurous you might want to hold off a while on trying Neue Mode patterns. One thing - it doesn't say so directly but I'm getting a feeling from this "sewing guide" that this pattern is intended for knits only which is not what I had in mind for it. I really just got it for the asymmetrical yoke and had radical plans that would end up with a dress that looks almost nothing like the cover picture. Oh well. I'm still confident that I can work it out somehow.

Handmade Shoes

More than 20 years ago, probably closer to 30, (damn!) I bought a book that told in detail how to make shoes. I really wanted to give it a try but it seemed like too much messy, tedious work and, since this was before the Internet, even obtaining all the proper supplies would have been a bit of an ordeal so I never got around to it. But lately I started thinking about it again and, of course, did some googling.

Here is a serviceable pair of hiking shoes. The exciting thing about these, for me, is that you can buy Vibram soling by the sheet. I'll have to look into that.

Of course, if it can be imagined someone is already selling it on Etsy. Those are quite nice and very professional looking.

Instructions for making your own shoes. This is pretty close to what I remember from the book. For some reason the idea of making a custom last is the most off-putting part.

More shoemaking instructions. This might be the author of the book I bought years ago (I'm sure I still have it somewhere) and these are more like the kind of shoes I had in mind (the flats of course) - something cute and comfortable to wear with dresses.

And more instructions at WikiHow

Finally here are the results for "homemade shoes" on Flickr. (Quite a few of the photos that came up are NOT, in fact, homemade shoes.) There are a lot of people out there doing this. I'm not confident in my ability to end up with shoes I would actually be willing to wear out of the house but I am getting closer to making an attempt.