Hello, you hot and humid September! Making up for that fall-like July and August we had, aren’t’cha?

I’m so pleased that I got around to making yet another McCall’s 6696 shirtdress! Is this pattern popular or what? And for good reason: it’s “top drawer” with lots of variation possibilities. This is my first attempt at the pleated version. Both my sleeveless summery and cozy flannel versions featured the fitted skirt option.

I’m particularly happy with how this one turned out. This dress is very fun to wear, and the color is even more amazing in real life! A really striking emerald green. I’ve never been to Ireland (sad face), but I’m told the green color of the landscape there is stunning so I’ve dubbed this the Emerald Isle Dress.

The fabric itself was bought on this side of the Atlantic at G Street Fabrics in northern Virginia back in October 2011. Nice to stash bust! I used up all two yards of this 58″ wide rayon/linen blend to create this dress. The pattern calls for 2 3/8 yards (60″ wide) so this ended up being a tight fit, but I made it work. Phew. I originally bought it with a circle skirt in mind.

To account for the fabric shortage, I cut the collar band and the waistband in two pieces rather than on the fold. All adjustments from my previous versions were used on this one as well. One change I did make was going down to a size 10 at the waist (which means the whole dress is a straight size 10). This pattern is pretty roomy at the waist if you like things more fitted.

As you can see I didn’t use the collar piece for this version. I’ve been wanting to make a shirtdress without the collar just for a change-up so I decided to go with more of a Mandarin collar look. It’s a good thing I did want to try it for this dress because I didn’t have enough fabric to make the collar happen anyway!

My back bodice alteration from my previous two versions was used here too, though I’ve been thinking it might’ve been nice to add two center pleats below the yoke like you see on men’s shirts. Stashing that idea away for a future creation!

Mary of Idle Fancy makes a good point in her recent post about this pattern: looks like there should be two belt loops in the back even though the instructions only say to cut out four. Don’t believe I’ve ever caught that.

A dress with side seam pockets for all you pocket lovers out there. :)

Hello, little birdie! Leftover fabric from my Vogue 8380 dress (that sadly doesn’t really get worn). The pockets on this pattern seem like they could be a little bigger. The skirt certainly has room for roomier pockets. Doesn’t bother me so much, but FYI.

Buttons from M & J Trimmings in the Garment District. I spent a good 45 minutes to an hour there (on Labor Day – yep, they were open) trying to find the right buttons. It can be agonizing and fun all at the same time. I settled on eleven of these 1/2″ metal buttons and used green thread to create a flower effect and tie it in with the dress color. First time using my machine’s button foot and it worked like magic! I’ve only ever hand-stitched buttons in, but I love how sticking a pin on top of the foot creates a shank as the button is being sewn in. Win-win!

Right, so now that we’ve taken care of the close-ups, why not take a stroll with me through Washington Square Park on a hot, humid late afternoon?

You can get a sense of the skirt in motion here. I just love how it moves. Pretty flowers at right are for my mom! :-D

My dress goes with my book?

There you are, Washington Square Arch! The guy underneath it in the white shirt was playing the bagpipes (there’s always so much going on in this park – I get such a kick out of it).

This fabric drapes so nicely when sitting. I feel all lady-like in it.

I love sitting by the fountain. This dress makes it easy to do just that with its comfy, pleated skirt. I’m making a “hmmm” face for variety… ;)

Okay, any fans of the movie Barefoot in the Park? This is the monument Robert Redford pops up behind towards the end of the movie. Its location was moved during a redesign of the park, but, yep, still there!

And how about this lady selling her crocheted cupcakes in front of it? I love how she didn’t seem phased at all by the random person making dorky poses (AKA the worst ‘drunk Paul Bratter’ impersonation ever) behind her. Just another day out and about in ol’ New York!

This is hands down the easiest skirt I’ve ever made. It’s also without a doubt the most comfortable! Don’t you love whipping out a project in no time at all? Those are few and far between for me, but I’m thinking it would be nice to add more of them into my sewing rotation. It just feels so good to have something done and done with minimal effort (and cost!).

But before I chat about the skirt, I just wanted to add that these photos were taken next to Grand Central where I was meeting friends for drinks at the Campbell Apartment. I may have asked one of them to snap some photos while we waited for everyone else to arrive. :-D I later headed over to meet up with Lladybird Lauren (in from Nashville), Vicki of Another Sewing Scientist (in from Montreal), Juli of Sweet Little Chickadee, Fleur of Frau Fleur, and other lovely ladies! Gotta love Friday night in Manhattan chatting about irons, sewing machine repair, and Elna presses. ;)

PATTERN. None, and done! Originally I was going to use the Sewaholic Cambie gathered skirt pattern, but I didn’t have nearly enough fabric (wow, gathered skirts take up a lot of yardage). I realized I didn’t need it to be super gathered, so I just took some basic measurements to create this skirt. My main goal was to let the fabric do the work – it’s so eye-catching that I didn’t want to touch it too much. Let it be the star of the show, I say!

FABRIC. I used the most amazing rayon knit from Metro Textiles in the Garment District. I think I first heard about this store through Sown Brooklyn‘s Instagram feed, so thanks, Nettie! You have to take an elevator and turn the corner to a small store to get there. I scored two yards of this super soft fabric for $5 per yard.

I love the print, which is perhaps difficult to see in photos so I added some close-ups! It reminds me of tiles you might come across in some city off the Mediterranean. Not that I’m an expert on Mediterranean tiles, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. ;)

Besides the blue and white, there are small bits of warm yellow in it. In typical me fashion I would have bought one more yard to make a dress, but this was the last of the bolt. Soft, pretty, $5 a yard – don’t blame those buyers before me!

SIZE. Super easy. I cut the fabric from selvedge to selvedge for the width (so there’s only one serged side seam) and then cut the length about 25″ long, which is the length I use when I want the hem to hit below the knee. I ended up making it a little longer so I wouldn’t cut off the motif on bottom.

NOTIONS. I had 2″ wide white elastic on hand that I used for the waistband, which I then inserted into a fabric casing. I like using a safety pin to draw the elastic through the casing. Bodkins are the pits, if you ask me!

To gather the skirt, I just shirred two rows starting at about 5/8″ from the seam edge. They sit about 1/4″ apart. Easy peasy gathering! I left the gathering stitches exposed just below the waistband, which wasn’t my original intention, but I liked the effect and left it.

For the hem, I used a narrow hem stitch on my serger. I liked the ripple effect this stitch created on one of my RTW dresses, and that’s the look I got here.

I think this is a nice effortless style for the summer, and I can see myself pairing it with flats in the fall and spring. It just goes to show that a simple project every once in a while isn’t a bad thing. And sometimes all you really need to do is let the fabric be the focus and that’s all there is to it!

I knit my very first sweater! The Myrna cardigan by Andi Satterlund of Untangling Knots. Woohoo!

This was completed as part of the Outfit-Along, as I mentioned in a previous post. I did sew a dress in the challenge time frame (my peach dress that I shared last week), but I didn’t originally intend to wear them together. It just happened to be the dress I was making at the time and since the summer has been so busy I never got around to making the pencil skirt I had planned.

In any case, I was just so thrilled to have finished this cardigan by the deadline that I wore it with the peach dress and shared them in the OAL thread on Ravelry. A few days later, these photos were taken in Bryant Park and I’m much happier with how this cardigan pairs color-wise with my Colette Parfait dress from two years ago.

The yarn I used was Worsted Cotton by Blue Sky Alpacas. The color is Mediterranean, which is perfect since it reminded me of crystal blue water when I spotted it at Downtown Yarns at Avenue A and East 3rd Street. This yarn may be a bit heavier than what’s recommended, but I think it worked out all in all. The one issue I noticed is that it shed on my white dress. Little blue furries lightly sprinkled over the fabric. Hmm, was that supposed to happen?

Oops, should’ve evened out the cardigan before having my picture taken. :)

The pattern calls for size US 8 (5mm) needles, but after my first gauge swatch I went down to a size 7 (4.5mm).

I thought Myrna was a great first sweater project. It came together surprisingly quickly considering I really only worked on it on my subway commute, lunch breaks, and travel (and I was watching a lot of technique videos that I now know by heart – thank YOU, knittinghelp.com!). After a few false starts trying to figure out this whole knitting-a-cardigan business, I started for real in mid-June and, as I said earlier, finished by the July 31st deadline.

By the way, if you happened to buy this pattern before mid-June, or thereabouts, make sure you have the updated pattern instructions. There was an error and some people had armholes that were much too long. Since I was a bit behind, this didn’t really affect me, but I wanted to share that with you just in case. I believe you would have received an update from Andi on Ravelry (as I did).

I made my version without the keyhole at the upper back.

This is an extra small, which calls for approximately 440 yards of yarn. My three skeins gave me 450 yards, but oh did I ever struggle to make it to the end! Halfway through the bind off I ran out of yarn. I didn’t want to buy another skein so after frogging I ended up with one less row at the button band. At least now I know how to go backwards halfway through a bind off…

I was even thinking that for my next cardigan I would knit the button band first and then the sleeves. I figure it’s better to have to shorten the sleeves slightly than end up with an unfinished button band should I run out of yarn.

I wonder how I ended up with too little? One thought is my ribbing, which came out looser than the stockinette stitches. I think my purl stitches are the culprit – too loose – but I could be wrong. My finished waist circumference was 26″ and the schematic says it should be 23″. Also, the cardigan’s length is about 1/2″ to 1″ longer than it should be.

Finding the right ratio for picking up stitches, particularly at the armholes, was the trickiest part. I ended up picking up two stitches for every three at the armholes, but now I’m thinking they should have been picked up a bit differently at the sleeve cap. No idea! Anyway, it’s something to work on.

And that’s it! Thanks to Lauren and Andi for hosting the Outfit-Along, my Instagram buddies for cheering each other on during this challenge, and everyone else for having to listen to me discuss this knitting project. Oh, and thanks to Maggie of Stitch-n-Thyme (great blog name, right?!) for the moral support on Ravelry as we both ventured into the world of knitting sweaters. This somehow turned into an acceptance speech.

I’m excited to hear that the OAL will happen again next year. I’ll definitely be better prepared now that I know I can do this – I CAN knit a cardigan! Yep, I certainly can. And so can you! :) Speaking of which, did you join in too and/or will you do it next year?

Well, whatta ya know? It’s my 100th blog post! So here I am celebrating that milestone in a new dress in Brooklyn! And when I’m posing in a new dress on cobblestone streets with old trolley line rails, a 19th century brick warehouse, and the grand ol’ gal herself, the Brooklyn Bridge, you know I am one happy camper.

PATTERNS. I combined the bodice from B5486 and the skirt from the Sewaholic Lonsdale to create a sundress just right for a humid New York summer (although it’s been pretty cool around these parts lately, what gives?). When it does get humid around here I definitely prefer sleeveless tops/dresses, so this dress will come in handy. I also love that the design can be paired with a cardigan, so depending on fabric choice this could easily transition into spring and/or fall. Heck, perhaps even winter!

I’ve had B5486 in my stash for a few years now, and I’d like to make the full version one of these days. It comes with a gathered skirt with an option for knee or maxi length. You can also add a waist tie. I used the bodice of view A and modified the neckline from v-neck to scoop, which is much more wearable for me as an office dress. I made a muslin of the v-neck and I think I’d have to do an FBA to give myself more coverage.

Please excuse the wrinkled back skirt – I wore the dress to work that day.

SIZE. I found that B5486 ran a bit large on me so I used a size 8 bodice and size 10 waist (both a size down from my normal Big 4 sizing). For the Lonsdale skirt I used a size 6. Isn’t sewing weird sometimes?!

FABRIC. I really love this fabric and am glad I didn’t wait too long to turn it into something. It’s a crinkly cotton from Mood that I bought during the Lladybird meet-up back in March. Have to admit though, this fabric almost took me down! It was a bit shifty and hemming it was kind of the pits (you may be able to tell). I think it kept growing longer as I was sewing so I’m glad I let it hang for awhile before hemming.

The bodice is lined with a white cotton with peachy-colored flowers, which I bought from The City Quilter on 25th Street. It was so easy to work with – yes! – but I wish I didn’t pick white for the lining. Not because it shows through (which it doesn’t), but because it peaks out from the neckline and that kind of drives me nuts. I usually go for linings that blend in. Thankfully attaching the lining bodice to the outer bodice at the waist as well as understitching the neckline helped.

Doesn’t the boy here look so mini? Funny optical illusion!

NOTIONS. I used a 12″ invisible zipper, which is fine to get in and out of the dress, but in the future I’d try for a 14″ length. The 12″ was the only one Purl Soho had on hand for invisibles, and I just happened to be in the neighborhood when I needed the zipper so there you have it. I remembered that the Sewaholic zipper recommendations are a bit longer than I usually need, and with the v-back I figured it’d be okay. If you’re a pear or hour glass shape it’d probably be a good idea to go with a zipper longer than 12″.

I forgot to interface the shoulder straps. Hope that doesn’t come back to bite me – no stretchy!

Yep, that’s my finished Myrna cardigan for OAL 2014! More on that in another post soon. :-D

MODIFICATIONS.

• BODICE. I already mentioned above, but just to keep modifications together I changed the v-neck to a scoop neck. I also cut the front bodice on the fold. The pattern cover makes the bodice look like it hits at the natural waist, but if you look at the technical drawing on the back of the envelope it’s more empire waist. I decided to lengthen the bodice 2″ so it hit at the natural waist. In the photo above you can also see that I added 1/2″ width to the part where the shoulder strap goes and the shoulder strap piece itself to cover my bra.

• SKIRT. I ended up taking out about 2″ of width from the hem at the center front and back seams. In my other Lonsdale dress I noticed these seams flapped to the sides so I made a mental note to fix that the next time around. I also shortened the skirt to hit just around the knee (I had forgotten that this skirt runs a bit longer!).

A couple of things I’m not so keen on: the way the right armhole stretched out during construction (lining peaks out – doh!) and the look of the dress at the waist seam. The instructions say to trim the darts and then press them flat, which I should have done but didn’t. For some reason I also didn’t trim and grade the seam allowance at the waist properly so there is bulkiness there. I’ve decided to let it go and just wear a belt or a sash, as in these photos!

Here are some detail shots of the dress lining with the zipper opening and the twin needle top-stitching at the hem. Isn’t the fabric neat close up? This lower photo came out a bit more orange than it actually is.

I do love the v-neck at the back! It’s such a pretty feature of the dress. Oh, and see the carousel to the right? It’s Jane’s Carousel (such a sweet name, right?), built in 1922 and originally located in Youngstown, Ohio.

Alrighty, that’s it! I’ll end with a peaceful little spot by the Manhattan Bridge. I’m so happy to have made a great little sundress that I hope to recreate a few more times. You can never go wrong with a sleeveless sundress during a hot and humid city summer. Or a fall-like one, as we seem to be having these days…

On a random note, the pockets on this skirt were just perfect for holding arcade tickets from later that evening at Coney Island. Over 400 tickets in winnings got us a whoopee cushion, slinky, and some other useless junk. :-D Happy August, everyone!

It’s June! How’d that happen?

Anyway, this fabric reminded me of Oreo cookies when I first bought it, so that’s what I’m calling this dress. I based this one on a Diane von Furstenberg dress I saw in the display window of her store in the Meatpacking District.

PATTERN. After the Colette Chantilly dress, I wanted a quick and easy project. Enter Vogue 8379, my go-to wrap dress pattern. I’ve made two other version so far – the “October Issue” and the “Purplue” – but this time decided to go with a more fitted skirt. The knit wrap dress may be my favorite. It’s not only easy to make, but it’s even easier to wear!

I love how the collar looks on one of the DVF dresses so I added the collar piece that comes with the pattern. Wouldn’t it look great in a solid-colored version of this dress?! I also twin-needled the collar to keep the fabric from rolling over, and I think it gives a finished look. I’m not crazy about how I attached it to the dress so I’ll probably add binding next time (the pattern comes with facing pieces, which I omitted. Just not a fan of facings.).

SIZE. Straight size 10. Nice and easy – thank you, knit!

FABRIC. I used about 2 1/2 yards (60″ wide) of this poly blend knit that I bought at Gizmo Sewing Supply** in the East Village. Good ol’ Gizmo. Actually, that’s not the store owner’s name, but I know a cat named Gizmo and, alas, Gizmo it is!

The fabric feels super soft. I don’t know about you, but I never get the press I want with polyester when I use the synthetic setting on my iron (in fact, it ends up not looking pressed at all). To get around this, I’ve been turning the iron up to the cotton setting and then using a cotton press cloth folded over twice. From what I’ve seen this higher heat setting doesn’t damage the polyester and the result is so much nicer. Just don’t make the mistake of pressing without the cotton press cloth. Ask me how I know. Yep, the soft feel of the fabric went hard real fast.

**Gizmo is a small mom-and-pop store and the fabric selection is pretty minimal, but he also sells lots of handy things you need at the last minute – zippers, buttons, snaps, twin needles, the works. Every New York neighborhood should have a Gizmo, if you ask me. Especially for those times when you go to the Garment District to buy a zipper, and then end up coming home with tons of fabric!! No, I am not guilty of that. ;)

NOTIONS. Being the simple project that it is, I only needed twill tape for the shoulders and fusible knit interfacing for the under collar. Yes! The twill tape was basted on first and then serged when I attached the front and back bodices.

I also added a snap tie to keep the inner part of the left wrap in place, both when I sit down and for particularly blustery days (or wind gusts from incoming subway trains!). The snaps are attached to the dress with embroidery thread. I’m actually thinking of adding these to my other wrap dresses too.

MODIFICATIONS. 

• STRAIGHT SKIRT. Since this pattern only comes with the full skirt option I used the skirt pieces from McCall’s 5179, a wrap dress pattern my sister gave me when her friend’s mom was giving away sewing patterns. Passing the baton! I once tried to remove width from V8379’s skirt pieces to create a more fitted skirt, but that landed in Disaster City. Clearly need to work on my drafting skills. In any case, M5179’s side seams are pretty straight and in the future I’m going to add some width to the lower half of the skirt so it hangs a bit better. Also, I accidentally chopped off too much length from the paper pattern and I wasn’t able to go with the just-above-the-knee length I originally intended. Oh well, guess that’s just how the cookie crumbles.

• SLEEVE LENGTH. I fiddled with the sleeve length and I think it looks okay, but I’m wondering if short sleeves would look better. Thoughts? I could even lengthen it slightly by adding bands…

• IN THE FLAT. Andrea of Four Square Wall’s post on sewing in the round vs. in the flat had me thinking. I’ve only sewn sleeves in the flat on the Sewaholic Renfrew since the pattern instructions say to, but Andrea made me realize that I should be doing this on other projects too! And I have to say, it was great. I’ll still be hemming the sleeves in the round since I like the finished look better, but for inserting the sleeves? In the flat all the way!

• TWIN NEEDLE. This is the first version of this dress where I’ve used a twin needle (another Gizmo purchase – Gizmo power!) instead of a single straight stitch to hem the skirt, sleeves, and wrap edges. I really like the look of it. If you’re curious the single straight stitch that I used for the other dresses has still held up, and those dresses get a lot of wear let me tell you!

And that’s a wrap! (sorry) Feels great to have another creation done and done. Not sure how much wear this poly creation will get in the coming months considering our humid New York summers, but I’m never opposed to having something ready for the next season.

Until next time!