Refashion: Colette Crepe Dress --> Wrap Skirt

Remember this dress? It has hung in my closet ever since I finished it. I've never worn it because the bodice was uncomfortable and just didn't seem to hang properly. I loved the skirt and the pockets, but I was never convinced that the overall style was all the flattering.

I was inspired by this post from Tasia at Sewaholic.net to take matters into my own hands, keeping the things I loved about this dress and getting rid of the drawbacks that were keeping me from wearing it. I removed the skirt from the bodice, turned under the waistline to finish the edge, and added some ties to the ends to turn it into this wrap skirt:

I refashioned this a couple of weeks ago, and I've worn it twice already (actually remembered to get pictures of it today after work, although not outside because it's yucky and I'm already covered in mosquito bites).

So why did it take me 4 months to come up with this idea?

Well, at first I thought I was being too picky and that I should just get over myself and enjoy my new dress. I tried it on again recently and I just couldn't stand the bodice. I knew it would drive me nuts all day long if I did wear it. I'd constantly be tugging at it and worrying over it.

Then I was annoyed with myself for having spent so much time on it and still not being happy with how it turned out. I was slightly embarrassed too, which is just plain silly, but I am a perfectionist by nature and I'm never happy when the final outcome is just ok. Other people said "oh, that's so cute!" but I knew it wasn't quite right.

Finally, I did get over myself and I'm much happier with the final result! I may eventually abandon the ties and put in two buttonholes and buttons to keep it wrapped properly, but this was a really quick refashion as it is now and it works fine.

FO: Crepe Dress

I finished the Crepe Dress! It was done a few weeks ago, but it took me a while to hem it. Here I am modeling it while wearing my new Franco Sarto pumps (I finally found black all-purpose pumps!) and red lipstick (which I never wear but this dress was calling for).

I really like the fabric and the colors, but unfortunately, I don't think this is the most flattering style on me. I'm apparently an "I" shape, and the red sash just draws attention to my lack of waist. It's really too bad, because it's a fun, feminine dress (while the pinstripes keep it from being too girly). And it has pockets!

Inside shot of the dress. The fabric was a cotton/linen blend that was really simple to sew and easy to press as well. I used a combination of French seams and zigzagging to finish the inside of the skirt (whatever was easiest in the situation). And I hand sewed the hem and finished it with red lace seam tape from my now extensive collection. I'm pretty happy with how all the sewing turned out and a bit more confident in my sewing skills too.

Close up of the fabric and the fun red lace seam tape on the inside of the hem.

I definitely learned a lot through the sewalong process. Many, many thanks to Gertie for hosting and for sharing so many tips along the way!

Quick weekend trip

We got up Saturday morning and drove 2 hours to visit C & J this weekend. It was fun to see the little ones and play with them, although they alternated between having fun playing with us and acting shy. James hadn't met his niece or nephew before, and it had been about 10 months since I had seen them. Luckily, now that there's only a 2 hour drive between us, we should have lots of chances to spend time with them. We got home about 3pm this afternoon, which gave us a bit of time to clean up the house a bit and for me to run a few errands.

I was able to do a little sewing a couple of evenings this past week. I sewed the seams on the skirt on my Crepe dress and attached the skirt to the bodice. I just need to hem it and I'll be finished! I think it turned out well, although the bodice still seems a bit large even though I spent a lot of time messing with the fitting on the bodice muslin. The skirt is an unflattering length right now, a good 5" past my knees, so I'll have to shorten it, but hopefully I can do that one evening this week.

In the car on the way home, I finished seaming my Blackberry cardigan. I'll need to re-block it once the collar is finished because the sleeves are just a bit short at the wrists and there's a bit too much fabric where the sleeve meets the body. I just need to stretch the sleeves a bit when I block it and hopefully it will fit perfectly. I've picked up the stitches around the edges to knit the collar, and the collar knitting should go pretty quickly now. I should finish it just in time to put it away for the summer...

Since every blog post should have a picture, here's what Cal spends the majority of her time doing:
She loves that blanket. There are many days when I wish I could join her for a quick nap. February has been busy and exhausting at work, and I'm looking forward to Friday evening, when my big deadline has passed and Spring Break has started.

A few crafty hours

I was able to spend a few much-needed relaxing hours working on my projects today.

I caught up on my sewalong progress for the Crepe dress. The shoulder and side seams are sewn on the bodice and the armhole facings are attached and tacked down. And all the edges are zigzagged to keep them from fraying (since I don't have a serger or pinking shears). If I can stay on track or catch up each weekend, we're supposed to be finished by Valentine's Day.

I'm all caught up on the Pendrell blouse too, which wasn't too hard since I'm making the sleeveless version. The necklines are stay stitched and shoulder seams are sewn and zigzagged. The fabric is so light compared to the cotton/linen blend I'm using for the dress! It is slippery, but I haven't had trouble sewing it yet. Cutting was a bit of a pain, but the sewing seems to be going just fine. I think I'll be making several more versions, and definitely one out of lace since I can't help but want to copy Tasia's great ideas.

Progress continues on the Blackberry cardigan too. I sewed the shoulder seams and eased the sleeves in. It was a bit of a pain to get them lined up properly and looking nice (I had to do it twice). I still need to sew the side seams and the sleeve seams before I start the collar. I'll be glad when this cardigan is finished. It feels like it hasn't been the smoothest project because of the number of times I've had to rip something out and redo it. But it will look beautiful when I finish it, and that's the goal. I wouldn't be happy if I left all the mistakes in because I would see them every time I looked at it.

I have the yarn and pattern already for my next knitting project. It's from Vogue Knitting, Spring/Summer 2009:
The yarn will be trickier to work with, but the knitting should be simple and mindless, a welcome change after having to pay such close attention with the cables and the blackberry stitch. It should go a lot faster too. My yarn is a raspberry/wine color, similar to the picture on the right. I haven't decided if I'm going to embellish the neckline with beads or crystals, or if I'll leave it plain. I might wait until it's finished before I decide. That should be a while from now though, seeing as how I have a cabled cardigan to finish first!

Busy weekend

I feel like I've accomplished quite a bit this weekend. We ran a bunch of errands yesterday and then I spent a good 4-5 hours working while James alternated between watching his shows and napping on the couch. I was going to try to get a bit more work done today, but realized I should give it a break when I thought of something I needed to do and then couldn't remember it 15 seconds later. Time to let my brain rest! Well, at least the work part of it anyway.

We had a nice lunch today with a couple we've met and keep running into. When we got home, I tried to catch up on my crafty projects. I cut out the pieces for my Pendrell blouse, something that was a bit difficult due to the slippery nature of my fabric. Then I sewed the darts on my Crepe dress bodice. This involved carefully pinning the darts down the legs, hand basting just inside the dart legs with white thread to keep the fabric from shifting (and to help me follow the line of the dart better on my black fabric), sewing the darts with the machine, and then tacking the ends of the thread into the body of each dart with a hand sewing needle. You might wonder why I added all the extra steps here, but I found that my darts weren't ending up very even on my muslins. I think I'm happy with how they turned out on the bodice this time, but I'll need to attach the pieces of the bodice and try it on to be sure. And finally, I've got my second sleeve for my Blackberry cardigan soaking right now. I'll block it out tonight and leave it to dry for a day or two. I could work on part of the cardigan assembly, but I'm tired and don't really feel like it right now. I kind of just want to sit and read or watch more Project Runway episodes. Besides, tomorrow marks the beginning of yet another busy week!

Two sleeves!

I finally finished the second sleeve for my Blackberry Cardigan! This feels like a major achievement only because I had to rip it back and knit the same sleeve 3 times. But I finally have two matching sleeves! The first one has already blocked, so I can block the second and start the assembly. Not tonight, maybe tomorrow.

I found all of season 6 of Project Runway on Hulu and was watching that tonight while finishing the sleeve and keeping an eye on my email. The semester has started, and so have the myriad problems and excuses that a group of 100 students always seems to have. However, things should settle down in another week or so and move along smoothly until finals start to approach. And at this point in the semester, most of the students are still happy and blissfully ignorant of the final grades they will end up with. :P

I read several tutorials on fusible interfacing yesterday and got all my interfacing attached for my Crepe dress. So I'm all ready to start sewing when the next sewalong posts come out. And I'm ready to start cutting the fabric for my Pendrell blouse. Progress is fun!

Crafty weekend

My shoes arrived yesterday and, unfortunately, none of them fit quite right. So back they all go. I've already placed another order with a new batch of hopefuls (like the Cole Haan pumps above). I've been on a quest to find the perfect pair of black pumps for the longest time now. I so rarely wear heels that I have no patience for shoes that hurt the minute you put them on or after standing in them for 2 minutes. And I refuse to get granny shoes. I also think that my feet are oddly shaped compared to whatever models the shoe designers of the world are using (and I seem to wear something between a 5.5 and a 6, which doesn't exist), but I remain hopeful that I will eventually find the right pair. Some day when I'm rich and famous, I'll have shoes made from molds of my feet! For now, though, thank goodness for free shipping and free returns with a huge selection of shoes.

In other news ---

Progress on the Crepe Dress: None. I was waiting for the next steps in the sewalong, but they seem to be coming very slowly, so I'm thinking I might just run ahead on my own. I found a tutorial on threadsmagazine.com about facings and interfacings, and with the muslins I've gone through, I have already practiced the rest of the bodice twice now. I think I'll wait for the posts when it comes to dealing with the skirt, however.

Progress on the Pendrell Blouse: I ran a zigzag stitch along the cut edges of my fabric and ran it through the washer, so my fabric is all prepped. I didn't want to cut into the original pattern, so I taped the pieces to our sliding glass door and traced them onto freezer paper (it's cheap and comes in a big roll). My bust and waist measurements match the size 6, but my hips are 4" smaller since the pattern is meant for pear shapes, which I am not. So I reduced each of the seams by 1/3" (8.5mm). The pattern is also quite long, but I don't like to tuck my blouses in (they never look quite right on me), so I shortened the pieces by 4 1/4" for a final blouse length of 22". My pattern pieces are now cut out and ready for the next step of the sewalong.

Progress on the Blackberry Cardigan: The first sleeve is blocking and I'm working on sleeve 2 while watching the Seahawks vs. Bears. The game is rather painful to watch right now as a Seahawks fan, so I'm glad to have something else to concentrate on.

More Free Time

The roads are still dangerous around town, so this is my third day at home. Apparently the city of Atlanta only owns 8 snowplows to serve its population of 5 million people. Watching the news has been entertaining, to say the least (especially since I grew up in the Pacific Northwest). Clips that have been shown that I found especially entertaining: a guy in a BMW spinning his wheels trying to gain traction, overheating his engine, and eventually catching his car on fire; a man easily ice skating with real skates down the middle of Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta; a DOT truck coming to rescue several jack-knifed semis on the freeway and crashing into a guard rail itself. Each day on the nightly news they mention the overnight freezing temperatures and say something like "All that slush and melted ice will re-freeze over night, making tomorrow's commute the worst yet!" To which I reply, "Well, duh!" Needless to say, we haven't left the house since Sunday evening.

So what have I been doing with my time?

1. Sleeping (since I can).

2. Reading. I think I read the entire book How Starbucks Saved My Life in 1.5 days or so. My thoughts -- decent book, a bit jumpy, seems too polished for real life (maybe the guy has a very vivid imagination, or a publisher who likes to "spice things up"). There were too many flashbacks that went on for much too long. I get that the author was trying to tell us about his early life in the midst of his new life, but I found it distracting. Some of the flashbacks went on for so many pages I forgot what was going on in the "present". But it's a quick and simple read. I didn't really like where it ended. I would have liked for the author to tell a bit about the events that were just about to happen when the book ended.

3. Sewing (well, mostly sewing preparation, anyway). I finished re-drafting the facings for my Crepe dress with Gertie's sewalong and cut out all my pattern pieces. I made lots of strips of cotton organdy and stabilized the neckline on the front and back pieces. I might read a few tutorials this afternoon and just jump ahead to attaching the fusible interfacing to the facing pieces since I have the time and I'm likely to fall behind on the sewalong in the next few weeks.

4. Shopping online. I ordered several pairs of shoes from Zappos.com since they offer free shipping and free returns. I can try them all on and send them back if I don't like them. After all, spring is on its way and I have all these cute dress and skirt patterns to sew! Here's what I ordered (although, not necessarily what I will keep since I'm so picky!):

Kensie Girl Lisa	Kensie Girl Chandra2
Sofft Ramona II	Softspots Neima

I've also decided to get two new knitting books. I'll pick up New England Knits at Borders when the weather clears since I have a $20 gift certificate (thanks, Brandy!). The other, Vintage Modern Knits, is due out in February, so I'll pre-order it on Amazon.



5. Checking this blog obsessively for comments. :P Thanks Tasia for being my first official blog commenter!

I'm not actually sure what else I've been doing. Maybe that's the best part, I don't really feel like I have to do anything at all! Something that's been really rare for me, and probably something I really needed.

Snow Day in Atlanta

I've been thinking I should have a blog so at least my family can follow along with what I'm up to. So, since we have a snow day today, this seems like the perfect day to get a blog started!

I bought a sewing machine just before Thanksgiving and I've been teaching myself how to sew. I figured the best way to do that would be to jump right into a sew-along or two. I spent a few weeks trying to perfect the fit on my muslin for the Crepe Dress with Gertie's sew-along, and finally convinced myself I was happy with it yesterday (modifications made: side seams taken in, small bust adjustment, shoulders modified, back waist darts lengthened). Here's Cal helping me lay out my fabric and pattern to start the cutting process last night:


Thanks Cal! So very helpful! The fabric is a linen/cotton blend from fabric.com. It's black with red and white pinstripes and a bit heavier than the really light cottons most people are using for the sew-along, but I wanted something that wouldn't be sheer so I wouldn't have to fuss with a lining.

I'll be starting the Pendrell Blouse sew-along with Tasia this week also. I have my fabric and pattern, but that's all the progress I've made.

I'll be making View C (the sleeveless blouse) with a navy blue and white polka dot polyester charmeuse from JoAnn Fabrics. At this point, I'm keeping my fabric choices on the easy care and inexpensive side. When I'm a bit more confident in my sewing skills, I'll start to branch out to some nicer fabrics.

I've also been oh-so-slowly knitting a cabled cardigan since some time in October. I'm working on the second sleeve, and as soon as I finish that I'll be able to assemble the body pieces and then knit the shawl collar. Here is the back and the two front pieces blocking on a towel on our futon:



The yarn is a bit darker than it looks in the pictures and is Cascade 220 wool. I wasn't sure how I would feel about pure wool, but as soon as it arrived in the mail I was happy with its squishiness and how soft it felt already. Since it's a cardigan, I'm not planning to wear this without a shirt underneath, so I'm hoping my skin will be happy with it.

Other than that, I have spent most of my energy getting over a cold and catching up on things at work last week (annual report, quarterly report, student recommendation letter, internal grant application, running calculations for a collaborator, checking files for a collaborator, reading a paper draft for a collaborator, working on my own research, getting a syllabus and class webpage and first few lectures ready for the new semester, etc, etc). So I feel entirely justified in taking this extra day for myself.

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, the background picture for my blog was taken at dawn one morning at Lick Observatory when the marine layer had rolled in over San Jose.