an outline for nine months of dress a month

In my mind I've got a loose plan for the order I think I'll use the fabrics, and the pattern I'll use with each.  Except for me plan sounds too close to rules and as said by Captain Barbossa of the Pirate Code these are more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules.

I do have some self imposed deadlines for a couple of fabrics.  The retro nautical print slated for December has to be used before I go to Canberra in late Dec/Jan to see the Versailles exhibition. That was the actual rule I imposed so that I could buy it (photo below). I don't want it stashed and I promised a bestie that I'd use it by then. This week I ordered a 5 yard piece of large scale red lobsters on black cotton to make a dress that I'll wear to see the B-52s in concert later this summer (can't remember the February date right now).  I'm looking forward to wearing it long before the concert though so I picked November because right now the mermaid, martini and vintage blue/green cotton have an emotional priority.

In brackets after the month, print & pattern are fabric amounts and when I bought them. EG 13Q3 was bought in the 3rd quarter of 2013 (between July-Sept).

August - Inky Martini, frankenpattern B9796 bodice with AA4571 (8m of 150cm, 14Q2)


September - Mermaids, AA4571 (4.5m of 112cm, 16Q1)


October - vintage green/blue abstract, AA4843 collar on AA4571 (5.5m of  90cm, 16Q2)


November - red lobsters on black, AA4571 (4.5m of 112cm, 16Q3)


December  - retro nautical, bodice 4803+skirt4571 (4.5m of 112cm, 16Q3)


January - brown with mint, NY 1930s wrap dress (4.0m of 150cm, 14Q4)


February - vintage maroon floral, AA2163 (5.5m of 90cm, 16Q2)


March - grape/purple splodges, AA4483 (4.0m of 112cm, 13Q3)


April - teal flowers on black, MO 9030 (5.5m of 112cm, 13Q4)


Most of my dress lengths are more recent purchases - recent compared to the bulk of my stash. Partly because when I first thought about making a couple of dresses I realised that I didn't have much in the way of dress lengths in the stash. In fact at the time, I literally had hundreds of metres of fabric but only two pieces long enough for a non-costume dress. Plus the long in progress before being tossed Lilly Rose dress. I'm sad about having to toss that but it didn't fit and was a series of one mistake after another. I think that even if it had fit, wearing it would only be a reminder of them.

Back on topic, I gave myself the option to buy a couple more pieces and the impulse to buy was under pretty good control until I got my Dress a Month idea. Of course I  then had a couple more purchases to replace those I'd cut out and *boom*. My job uncertainty hit and the mojo did a runner.

If I include (and I should) this year's January dress that is barely started, then I have 10 dresses to make from fabrics I already own.  No more buying dress lengths until I've 3 more dresses in my wardrobe.

Another fabric for a vintage summer dress

OK, not the only thing.  At the end of December I bought this piece of brown cotton satin with a duckegg & cream print.  I needed to get fabric for the collar cos I realised it's perfect for the wrap 1930s New York dress pattern.  The olive foliate print I had been planning to use was impossible to find a matching plain, except in white. I looked for a few years and not only does white not suit me, I figured it shows marks to easily for someone as clumsy as myself.

The choices of plain duck-egg or mint were un-inspiring. They looked flat and dull, and not right for this lightweight fluid cotton satin, and then one of the shop assistants suggested the quilting micro dot fabric. It works really well and is a lovely soft and spendy cotton.  This metre of fabric cost 75% what my 4 metres of brown print cost - ok that was ridiculously cheap for Australia, but still. meeep



I also got some black for contrast collar on my red/black print cotton. Red was meh, white a no-go-zone.

the older dress pattern, from the stash

For the curious, this is the pattern I bought the bundle for, it's an un-marked mail order pattern, for a 48" bust. I'll need to narrow the shoulders more than I would if it was my size, but it might make a nice dress for at home in a lawn. Maybe, but as it's not what I'd wear to work then it'll have to wait a little longer.



Look at those step by step sewing instructions on the pattern envelope! 9 steps in total with no pictures

Plus size patterns aren't new

Though it seemed like they were after the plus-size drought of the 80s. One of the patterns in my previous post has a 52" bust, and one of the reasons I've procrastinated so badly is that I'll need to (1) copy it onto new paper and then (2)grade it down to my size and lastly (3) alter it to fit.



I've a habit of procrastinating cos I want something to be perfect, and once it's done there's a good chance it won't be. Even if the imperfections are only in the eye of myself!

I've come across other equally large vintage patterns, usually one of the mail order brands such as this Anne Adams1960s evening dress currently on eBay. Which I think is quite wearable now, depending on fabric choice and skirt length. And another 52" bust Marian Martin dress and "blouse".

I sometimes wonder if one of the reasons I thought I was so fat when I was in my late teens/early 20s is that most fashion patterns pretty much stopped at 36" bust. I was that as a teenager and then went up 38" until I was about 22/23 when I managed to lose enough pounds to be 36-24-37. Not only was I just above pattern sizes but I was an extreme 8 shape. Tiny waist but D bust and high hips. Trending more an 8 than an X if that makes sense. At a time when an androgenous shape was the fashionable one. No wonder I felt like a heifer, the fashions just didn't suit me.

Of course, I got sick and my weight bolted - so it seemed. Though it's more that the PCOS & other endocrine disorder kicked in hard, most likely cos I was so unwell. I think that whole process of believing I was very plus when I wasn't is one reason I have little shame about being plus size now.

Enough introspection, the original point of my post is to say that thanks to the internet I now have access to a whole range of plus size vintage patterns, not only in my size but beyond it.

summer dresses I might make - 6 each of fabrics and patterns

I've looked at my stash & vintage patterns (as I've failed to live up to my vintage pattern pledge this year) to see what my options are.

Here's a pic of my 6 vintage patterns of choice, and 6 dress lengths I already own. They're not in any particular order, except the top 2 patterns are in the mail to me. 

I've let my subconscious think about it which fabric and which pattern.  The top left pattern gets the martini fabric; the top right pattern gets the 4th teal/navy trefoil print and maybe the red + black print; middle right pattern gets the top splodgy print; bottom left dunno really maybe the olivey print; the bottom right gets the flowers on  black? maybe.

I may not use all patterns, but I want/ need to use all fabrics.  I can't buy another dress length until 4  of the 6 pieces are made.  Must shop the stash first!

Inspired to crochet 1930s hats

I've been watching the blog Advanced Style for a couple or more years now, though not obessively. So when I heard there was a documentary I knew it was on my Must See list.

I told my friend C about it & we saw it on Saturday morning. For a while I've been mumbling to any friend who'll listen that I want to upgrade my wardrobe to have a 1930s influence, and whining that everything is wearing out.

Seeing the documentary was either going to crush or inspire, and thankfully it's been inspiring. Although I'm already in the age group he photographes *whimpers*.

I loved the 90+ year old woman who hadn't been telling her art students what her age was. When asked she'd answer "somewhere between 50 and death". LOL

So, I need to actively do something about my clothes, but also my accessories. Cos I tend to forget them and I shouldn't. After watching the doco, we went up the road and looked in a charity shop where I bought a cotton beret. Wrong colour for me, but if it dyes that's great. And if it doesn't dye well at least it gives me something to aim for. To be worn on the back of my head, not the top/front.

Buying it conceived in me a passion for 1930s crochet hats, and thankfully etsy has a plethora of PDF patterns to buy/download. I think I need this set of jaunty 1930s hats, and this cloche (?).

Signing up for an outer-wear contest

I've signed up because I need to make a lightweight winter coat, and have already selected a 4m piece of wool from my stash. Today I picked up a parcel from Eva Dress with a 1929 coat pattern 33269.

It really seems worth signing up as I'm already making something, plus it may motivate me to finish!

Hunting for a missing vintage pattern Anne Adams 2163

I haven't abandoned all hope of finding my missing vintage pattern (the Anne Adams dress).

So, I've bought a similar but different one to indicate what I think of that pattern going into hiding. As I sms-ed to a friend today "it's probably on a tropical island drinking cocktails without me".

One of the reasons I wanted to find it was not just to finally stop procrastinating but to enter the pattern review contest where you use a pattern brand new to you.  I've sewn enough years that I've used most of the ones I'm likely to. Though I do have Sewholic Renfrew to hand.

The other reason is that I want to make the dress!

Here's a pic of the new pattern winging it's way through the post to me, also Anne Adams #4483.

And it's my lucky day - I was looking for another ASG group ig could get to on the 2nd Saturday of the month, and Top Ryde meets then as well as on a Tuesday.  My motivation is that if I'm at a dedicated space then I get more done than at home where I might procrastinate doing housework (cos that is eternal) or trawling the internets. I know myself well enough that even allowing time for travel, going somewhere else is more productive for a whole day.  I'm happy to skip a sewing saturday if something better is on offer, but otherwise why not.  In fact I'd love to be able to go somewhere on a Sunday.  It comes from living in a bachelor flat ... I'm starting to find it cramped for sewing.

 

a pattern idea for my faux-hooverette

Hmm, re my wraparound house dress - a faux-hooverette - I was wondering if I could adapt this dress pattern to be wrap front. I got it earlier this year and it's a good excuse the play with the pattern. I could put tape or ribbon at the crossing point & tie in a bow.

[edited to add:] a ribbon tie at the crossover point as well as a waist tie-belt.

the closer I get, the more ideas I'm getting

I'm pretty much posting this as a reminder of what I'd like to have in my wardrobe so that once I've got the full use of my sewing machine knee back (2 weeks + 2 days, wheeee) I'll remember that I had this gap in my Real Life wardrobe.

I had to throw out my house dress as it reached the point even I didn't like it. My Shoebox home is 2 levels above the laundry, so in summer when what I'm wearing is minimal to deal with the 38C+90% humidity I need to put on something to make me publicly decent while I pop down to the laundry. I now have a hankering to make a 'hooverette' dress. A depression era wrap dress for doing housework in. Not a high status garment, but a functional one, and they often wrapped both ways so that if one front got grubby you could swap it over. Functional! Now I do have a gift of a 1930s wrap dress pattern that I intend to use this summer, but it's got a glitzy large collar that I wouldn't want on a house dress. Pretty much I don't want a structured collar - layers = heat.

using a stash pattern, but I may need to repurchase it anyway.

Today needing a 1930s jacket pattern surged to the front of my addictive-sewing lobe. Assuming there's a lobe of the brain reserved for obsessive sewing!

 So I popped onto Etsy to see what was available, only to notice that erm, a Butterick Retro pattern #6329 appears for sale more than once, and is already safely in my stash. So I'm not going to buy another 1930s jacket pattern but instead use the one I've had since 1999.

*hrmmmm* UH-OHHHHH It appears that I toiled this pattern in August 2008. I had no memory of this. Nor do I know where the pattern pieces and toile are. I may have to repurchase the pattern cos it seems I liked it!

parcels and what Sesame Street calls "sometimes foods"

It's been a good parcel post this week.  I bought a selangor pewter jug and goblets on eBay, partly for more upper class regency reenactment and partly cos it reminded me of Game of Thrones.

It will get used, so it's not entirely impulsive and just for the pretties.  However another parcel that arrived the same day was Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding.  The co-incidental timing didn't escape me.  There's hoarding in the family, and I know I've a tendency to find it hard to let go of things.  This is to help me not get to the level of stuff that it becomes a problem for me. It started to while I was so sick if only because it had become disorganised, because you can't organise too much stuff.

Most of my stuff is sewing & costume related, but I can do an overall cull. I've done it in the past when I moved home a lot, however staying in the one place for so much longer has meant a build up of things.  Plus I can learn to think about objects differently.

The other thing that arrived was the costume patterns. I spent time this evening reading them and might even use the Tailor's Guide stays pattern as the base for my hobbit bodice.

I'm off my food today - there's a bug going around work and I came home at lunchtime yesterday and slept til 5.30pm.  I was ok enough to go to work today but didn't want brekkie.  I did get to eat a chicken quiche for lunch, and it was very chicken tasting. That is rather than faint hints of chicken I could see the pieces and taste it.  I'll buy it again, though it was fairly pricey, simply cos the filling was quality.  I got it at from the frozen section at an IGA on the way to work, and it's by a Queensland company Glutenfree Bakery.  I don't have a photo of it, cos it's in my tummy.  As it was frozen I heated it in the microwave at work, but if I was at home I'd take the time to heat it in an oven after defrosting. Last week I bought a twinpack of their Chicken Pies. YUM. This is something I've wanted repeatedly in the past 5 months and I finally found one I could eat.

not much to report

My only sewing progress is that the bodice mockup is cut out of leftover yardage. So that's something, but I don't even have a picture of that.

Still to do on the mockup are tailor tacks, and then assembling it.  Hmmm, it's a mockup, I could just mark the fabric with a pen.  That idea makes me happy.

a giant extra extra long photocopy pattern

Or so it seems.

The copy vintage pattern from the UK arrived today, and it's on a long continuous piece of paper - something like 2 metres or more. It looks like a photocopy, although not like office copies, if that makes sense. The instructions are copied in full & it comes with a notebook with pattern sizes, vintage fit alterations, a page to list your own measurements, a garment history page (ie for what you've made, a notes page and something else my brain can't recall.

I'm happy to buy from this seller again, although once I'd unpacked the pattern copy & realised how long it was, it was a chore to cut it up into manageable pieces. Cos it's just so big, impossible in my small place to work out how to refold it as it was,  and it started to tear at one point.

It's on my wish list for summer, maybe I'll even get it done before the end of this one.

pattern MIA for too long

late last night I decided that as I'd been missing half the pattern pieces for a year, that I would replace Decades of Style skirt pattern 3004.

That way I might find the half cut out skirt ... started on the first Saturday in 2012 and packed away in June/July. Now I can't find that, so I figure if I replace the pattern I might find the skirt and if I don't at least I have the pattern again.

While I was at it I ordered a 1926 negligee, I've always liked the look of it and if I was going to pay more for international postage than the single pattern, then I might as well add another pattern.  I'll change the neckline of the negligee, either a slit or v at the front. I hates things around my neck.