LBD....Little Burgundy Dress

There's been sewing going on in my house and it's about time that I put it down into this record.  I've been avoiding blogging, heaven knows why, but I do like having this diary-like record of my days, weeks and life so it's time to catch up.

Simplicity 2364 as a dress

First up, my LBD....better known as my Little Burgundy Dress.  I've been in love with the Simplicity 2364 top for more than a year now and decided to try it out in a dress.  I love it!  I used burgundy stretch lace (maybe from Jomar) and burgundy slinky...really nice stuff with the rayon in it for great weight and drape.  I've adjusted my photo to better show the contrast.  I had enough fabric so I made a top in the same fabric which will head to Florida with me in November.  Basically I added 20 inches to the top hem area.  Now I have plans for another version in navy.

The rest of August's sewing was productive and  filled with a lot of repeats.  When it's hot and humid or I have other more challenging things on my mind, it's not wise to start a new complicated sewing project.  The pattern adjustments I make need a clear head and August wasn't the right month for that.  But sewing something fun and easy is a great distraction and break from other tasks.  So here' s look at what else got made up last month.

McCalls 6201 dress

Vogue 7823 in Fabric Mart linen

Five Pamela's Patterns Magic Pencil Skirts...skirt pattern

One self-drafted silk chiffon poncho

I also enjoy a thoroughly distracting, fun book when I have other more distasteful tasks in my life and here's one that fit the bill.  Loved it, loved it.

USA Today's #1 Hot Fiction Pick for the summer, The Chaperone is a captivating novel about the woman who chaperoned an irreverent Louise Brooks to New York City in 1922 and the summer that would change them both.

Only a few years before becoming a famous silent-film star and an icon of her generation, a fifteen-year-old Louise Brooks leaves Wichita, Kansas, to study with the prestigious Denishawn School of Dancing in New York. Much to her annoyance, she is accompanied by a thirty-six-year-old chaperone, who is neither mother nor friend. Cora Carlisle, a complicated but traditional woman with her own reasons for making the trip, has no idea what she’s in for. Young Louise, already stunningly beautiful and sporting her famous black bob with blunt bangs, is known for her arrogance and her lack of respect for convention. Ultimately, the five weeks they spend together will transform their lives forever.
For Cora, the city holds the promise of discovery that might answer the question at the core of her being, and even as she does her best to watch over Louise in this strange and bustling place she embarks on a mission of her own. And while what she finds isn’t what she anticipated, she is liberated in a way she could not have imagined. Over the course of Cora’s relationship with Louise, her eyes are opened to the promise of the twentieth century and a new understanding of the possibilities for being fully alive.
Drawing on the rich history of the 1920s,’30s, and beyond--from the orphan trains to Prohibition, flappers, and the onset of the Great Depression to the burgeoning movement for equal rights and new opportunities for women--Laura Moriarty’s The Chaperone illustrates how rapidly everything, from fashion and hemlines to values and attitudes, was changing at this time and what a vast difference it all made for Louise Brooks, Cora Carlisle, and others like them.

I seem to be on a historic novel kick this summer but have been disappointed by the few others that I have read.  This one was well-written, interesting and rewarding to read.  I had not seen the good reviews on this one, found it at the library by accident and it was a delicious diversion for the last weeks of summer.

Next post, how I spent my summer vacation....and how my first quilt is progressing.  Until then, it's good to be back in the blog world and back to some more "serious" sewing now that fall is in the air.