A success

I figured I should post one of my sewing successes. This is Simplicity 2215, a Cynthia Rowley pattern. Fortunately, I read the reviews before I started so I knew going into this that there was a lot of ease. In fact, there was so much ease that I cut a size smaller than my measurements indicate I need, and still ended up taking in the dress about an inch all the way around, and also bringing the waist seam up about an inch.

I chose not to make button holes; there’s an invisible zipper on the left side seam so I didn’t need the buttons to actually work.

I got the fabric in Boston about a year before we left. I’d made a top out of it and loved the look and feel so much that I went back and bought them out of the rest of it. It's a cotton gauze-ish material with enough weight to it that I didn't need to line the dress. Matching the plaid was a nightmare as it's a crazy one way plaid. I did well to get the rows matched across the bodice front. Fortunately it's a busy enough plaid that the non-matching seams are almost unnoticeable.

I don't think I'd make this dress again. While it's great for summer casual days, the way it fits is not how I generally prefer my clothes and it's not enough of a winner in terms of design to go to the trouble to alter the fit. But hey, it's done, it's cute and that's good enough for me.

I rule!

When I was still in the active duty Army, I had long hair. Army regulations (it's a PDF, and the regulations about female hair are on pages four and five) require that females not have their hair go below the bottom edge of their uniform collar and not interfere in putting on or wearing a protective (aka gas) mask. So I put my long hair up in a bun, but I always wished I knew how to French braid my hair because I love how that looks. Years later, when I was in the Reserves, I grew my hair long again and tried a few times to braid my hair myself but failed miserably. So I’d go to my hair stylist’s house early on drill days and pay her to braid it.

That got old, and also expensive. I remember one week in January I was frustrated with myself for not being able to braid my damn hair. We’d had a box of fresh Florida grapefruit given to us for Christmas and since I was the only one who really loved them and there were far too many for me to eat before they went bad, I’d juiced up a bunch to make Greyhounds. I sat in the family room watching some show I don’t remember, sipping my drink and fuming over my hair. Enough was enough, I thought. I was earning all sorts of academic awards and honors in college but couldn’t figure out how to braid my hair?? That was just crazy! And that night I taught myself to French braid my hair.

Today I figured out my serger and I did it without drinks. I won’t say I’ve mastered it but I did get a wearable, usable garment out of it—the purple sweater I moaned about here. And I’m pretty happy with the results, even if the process was more painful than it needed to be.

Basically, I cut apart every seam in the garment except the shoulder seams and then I serged them all back together again. That means I took out about ¾ inch in every single seam—and the finished garment is not too small. I had already taken out a lot of width in the pattern when I cut out because I didn’t have enough fabric. Altogether, I cut my version of this top a good 10 inches smaller around than the size I should have cut according to the pattern directions and sizing charts.

But all’s well that ends fairly well. I’d post a picture but Kent is heads down working on work stuff and my efforts at self-portraits generally stink.