I was on a roll a couple of months ago finishing a project every week but life happened. I had 2 elderly pugs and they both passed away in the last couple months. I knew to expect it but even then, I was still utterly unprepared for the loss. I just feel like eating chocolate and watching bad netflix originals.
That being said, I did finish one project before I fell off the cliff. Butterick 6380, which is part of the Gertie designs. I love all of her patterns, I have most of them but I am missing a few. They discontinued them through Butterick but they recently re-released some on the Simplicity brand. I still want the pink fringe dress and the one shoulder gown. I was never able to get them in my size when they came on sale at Fabricland. I think I will treat myself on Etsy one of these days to complete my collection in the near future.
I found a soft rayon print at Fabricland in the clearance section, I think it was just under $10 a meter. However, now they have it on clearance on the Fabricville site for around $5 a meter. If you like this print, it comes in black and white as well. It is soft and a bit like chiffon but it’s not completely sheer. I made this dress on the fly so I didn’t have yellow lining on hand. I used ivory and it peaks through a bit on the neckline. If you are making this dress, I would plan for a close match on the lining. It looks ok the way I did it but if you are a perfectionist, it will drive you nuts every time it flips to show. I am not completely loosy goosy nor am I perfectionist, so I am only slightly annoyed I made this error. I used a fine point needle on my sewing machine and did a lot of steam ironing to get all the seams to lie flat as the fabric was so delicate it had the potential to pull a bit.
The dress is very flattering to a more curvy figure so if you have curves – sew this dress, it will make look skinnier. I am not saying I am fat but I definitely ate a lot of chocolate and cake in my grief and ladies…this dress hides it well. A design element of this dress is the pull to the sides on the neckline, it looks nice but it made impossible for me to wear a bra with straps. I switched to a strapless and it was perfect. If you need to wear a bra with straps you may need to do some engineering with bra strap holders to keep them out of site.
And a real close shot so you can see the cute pattern of the fabric and how soft and light it is.
This is exactly the dress I would wear to stroll through Paris in September. I am more likely to visit my husband’s family in Italy at that time of year but it’s likely going to be 40 celsius in September. I would roast in this polyester dress but no worries, I am slowly building my silk, cotton and linen dress wardrobes for when can freely travel again.
So now that I have done my show and tell and patted myself on the back…let’s talk about my grief and sewing. I love sewing but I feel so sad after losing my dogs that it’s been so hard to get to it. I have bought new patterns, fancy fabrics and looked at sewing instagram daily – so far I just feel ho hum about it.
I promised my niece I would sew her a shacket and that is what I have been forcing myself to do one seam at a time. I couldn’t find a pattern by the big 4 and I didn’t have any vintage ones that were quite right so I found a pdf one on etsy. I am always weary about pdf, I know everyone is doing them but I don’t like them as much as bought patterns from the big 4. It was awful! You can’t see the pattern until you pay for it and when I looked at the fundamentals, it was missing markings, missing instructions and overall the proportions weren’t right. Waste of money!
When I finally gave up on that pattern, the very next day I found a suitable 1990’s pattern from McCalls. It needs a bit of tweaking like the bottom needs to be reshaped and the pockets weren’t right but it’s pretty close. I won’t show the PDF one because I have pretty much told you it was crap – but I feel for the person who made it. It’s their livelihood and possibly they think that it is an acceptable pattern to sell on Etsy. Maybe someone else might not have issues with it but I am spoiled by professional patterns. Once I finish with this pattern I am going to list it because there just aren’t that many shacket patterns on etsy. I may save one poor soul from buying that other pdf pattern.
I used white corduroy because back in the 1990’s Pearl Jam came to play in Manitoba and while he was on stage Eddie’s jacket fell off the stage. It was ripped to pieces by the crowd and I remember a classmate showing me a piece of his jacket. It was worn brown corduroy. The jacket you see in the video Jeremy was a shacket of sorts and a very famous piece of 1990’s music history. I thought corduroy was a perfect fabric to create a homage to this very 90’s trend. Plus it was on sale at fabricland for $3 a meter…but I will tell my niece the first story when I give it to her.
It has taken me weeks to get to this point of the project. I have been trying to do one thing a day or week, depending on how I feel. I am working on the sleeves and I think I will have it finished this weekend. It’s almost summer weather so my niece won’t be wearing this corduroy shirt any time soon. She will probably never know how much I struggled to make this for her right now….but that’s ok, that’s what Aunts do.
I hope to finish it this weekend so I can do a fast project for me to try to jump start my sewing again. I am thinking of sewing the Gertie Patreon Skipper bodysuit or maybe the Jamonata Opian bathing suit? Or maybe since everything is closed and Covid cases are high – I might try to do both.
So I will just leave with this very happy memory of my dogs when we were all a lot younger. I miss them terribly.
Style Sewciety 