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.

Hot Weather, Hot Dress, New Top

I'm calling this my "Hot, Hot, Hot Dress," not because I'm so very hot and spicy (more like medium hot and saucy) but because this is our very hot summer here in the US.  I cut this dress out after the June 29 storm when we lost power for four days.  My sewing room was hot, hot, hot as well since it's the top floor of our 60 year old house.  But I admit that no Internet or electronic entertainment meant that I got a lot of cutting out of projects done even if I couldn't sew right away.

Simplicity 3678, view C, with narrowed sleeves

The fabric is an ITY knit from Fabric.com.  For once I didn't let this one age too long. 

Droopy rayon knit failure

 I did try this scoop neck view C in a wearable muslin as a top first.  I did a "cheater's" full bust adjustment by adding an inch in width at center front which was simply eased into extra gathering, and 3/4 in extra length on the front bodice piece which I also eased when sewing it to the back pattern piece.  But the wearable muslin was unwearable.  I stitched it up from some of the rayon knit fabric that Fabric Mart had last summer and it drooped and grew the moment I tried it on.  Shucks, I love the colors in the remaining fabrics in my collection.  I think they might work as more closely fitted knit tops, perhaps as my favorite Jalie knit top.  But the full bottom was too heavy and kept pulling this top downward.  Ah well, that's why we make a sample mock up, right?

What do you do when you have a sewing disappointment?  Pull out a guaranteed success and get back in the saddle.

Simplicity 2364

This is another version of an OOP pattern that I have made several times before, as a top and as some dresses.  I like the scoop neck of view C on the pattern and already have a few more in the works.  Once again, I love a TNT pattern and the options it gives me to expand my wardrobe quickly and easily.
Speaking of TNT, here's another of that Simplicity 2364 where I've combined some stretch lace and slinky from my collection.  Next time I'm going to try a knee length dress.

Speaking of the hot weather, much of the US has been suffering from heat and drought conditions this summer.  That was also the theme behind this thoroughly enjoyable Australian mini-series, Rain Shadow, that we rented from Netflix last month.  The beautiful Rachel Ward is a farming vet who hires a new city vet as an assistant....after 6 others have left her employment in the last year or so.  The six episodes are excellent character studies of the locals, the struggles of farming in an era of climate change and we thoroughly enjoyed this one.  How nice that Netflix, like blogging, lets us better understand the interests and challenges of people around the world.

Tabula Rasa Jacket #2 and Other TNT Projects

Hello, lovely patient readers, lurkers and the mildly curious.  Some sewing going on here but my own blog reading or writing has fallen by the wayside in the last two weeks.  No dramatic reasons, good or bad, just too many other lovely distractions.  So here I am to play catch up and share a few projects from February.

First up is this outfit from the Fit for Art Patterns Tabula Rasa Jacket.  I made a lined tweed tone on tone version back in August Tabula Rasa Jacket #1 and this is my entirely different one suitable for FL evenings.  

Stitched wrong sides together then rolled hem edged

Thanks to my enormous collection of lightweight silks, stashed from numerous JoMar and Fabric Mart Pennsylvania trips over the last 10 or 12 years, I have plans for several more of these easy to sew jackets.  This one was made to go with black pants and also this black twist top dress which is merely the Jalie twist top Jalie 2788  lengthened and sleeveless.  The fabric is a corded slinky like fabric from Fabric Mart.  Wonderful travel dress and I am sure I will wear it frequently.  
This lightweight jacket is easy to wear although without shoulder pads my low right shoulder (which seems to be sinking lower ever year) does make the right side droop.  I'm too lazy and not vain enough to make separate right and left pattern pieces for this jacket and I figure my vivacious personality and sparkling conversation will distract you, right?  Or maybe the bold fabric combinations will blind you until I leave the scene.

Simplicity 2364

TNT patterns are always fun to sew and wear in a few days.  While Mr. Lucky was up north I made two more Pamela's Patterns Magic Pencil skirts and one of these delightful Simplicity 2364 tops,2364 review my first here in my Florida wardrobe.  

Magic Pencil Skirt from Pamela's Patterns

Now that Mr. Lucky and I are back together in the same state....yes, in Florida and in the same happy state of being...I'll have my chief photographer back as well.  He's such a help around the condo that I'll have more time to sew, than you very much.  (Aside:  I bow in awe to those of you who work outside the home, raise children, care for declining family members AND who sew, take and post pics and blog about it all....) This Tabula Rasa Jacket and Simplicity top were both projects that I started at the sewing retreat in late January.  I have one more to complete, a lovely tweedy jacket, that remains unfinished.  But also only half way finished is my latest reading project, Drums of Autumn ,fourth in a series by Diana Gabaldon.  Almost nine hundred pages and worth every page.  We celebrated my birthday yesterday rather quietly (in the midst of a week of social events otherwise.)  Rode our bikes to the new Trader Joe's in the afternoon then I made a salad that we took to the beach with wine and bread and our books for sunset.  So grateful for time and health and the ability to appreciate our many blessings.  These long distance, virtual sewing friendships are among those blessings to here's a toast to all of us connecting around the world.