Chintz Print Pullover Dress

My pedantry won't call it 'chintz' with no qualifiers, because it's a lightweight twill instead of glazed.  It's also--again, being pedantic--very much the English Granny kind of chintz print, and not the traditional Indian style.

Anyway.

 

Cat Patch for Halloween...Gift...in March

 This is for a friend who likes Halloween

 

 

A Hint of Fairy Tale

Oh, look--another layer cake dress

  

Persicaria

I cut a bodice from some of the fabric I got in the last visit to the craft thrift store, and then realized that I didn't like how the construction of one of the other fabrics (also from the craft thrift store) I had picked for it contrasted with it (the  bodice fabric is a very fine cotton, the other fabric is a great print on a very distinctly poly cotton blend.)  I put aside the bodice pieces, along with the rest of that fabric, which was way too short to make much of a skirt, and poked around in my fabric stash to find something that would work well with the other fabrics I had already cut for the visible facings and edge bands to go with the former bodice fabric.

Since I have been working on refining both my fabric stash and my ability to keep new acquisitions within a relatively coherent aesthetic, I pretty easily found a piece of fabric I thrifted nearly a decade ago, but was never quite sure what to do with.  There was just enough of it that, at one point, it was probably very close to being turned into a small button-up shirt, but that phase of making so many small button up shirts did end before that happened.  There wasn't quite enough of it to make a full dress, but, when adding more fabric?  Just right.

 

 

Gray and Bright

I got a lot of fabrics, the last time I went to the craft thrift store, that unexpectedly coordinated really well (plus a lot of fabrics I knew coordinated when I chose them), so, of course, my first inclination was to use them in the same project.  Maybe another layer cake dress?  I started pulling other fabrics from my stash that coordinated, and eventually decided to try making a dress or two from a mix of the new (to me) fabric mixed with stuff I've had for a while.  It seemed more...fair?...to mix new with old, instead of using up all the new in its own projects, while letting fabrics I already had continue to go unused.

I also wanted to make a nice, simple pullover dress--no patchwork this time!  ...well...relatively simple, because I did want to mix the fabrics with nods to the Gunne Sax pattern I have, mainly via visible facings, bias binding the neckline, and ruffles and more ruffles.  But.  No patchwork.  So.  It still seemed to go together very very fast.

 

Olive & Aubergine Patchwork

Once again, I opened a fabric storage drawer and said to myself, "This is very crowded, maybe I should use up all of a certain kind of fabric here in a patchwork project."

This time, it was bits of rayon, especially after I noticed they all circled around the same greens and purples...plus one black and white print.  At first, I wasn't going to include the B&W, but I thought it made a nice, unexpected contrast, so I went with it, which helped when it came to finding additional fabrics to mix in.

In addition to the rayons (most of which are challis, but one is faille), there's a vintage linen???, smooth plain weave cottons, homespuns, a flannelette, and a slubby silk cotton blend.

Make-over

 Made a coat dress at the beginning of January.  Didn't like it...like...intensely.  Even if I did address the fit issues, the big problem, for me, was that I did not like how the collar was constructed--unless it's a motorcycle jacket, I like my collar and lapels to be more connected than that.

I do have plans for a patchwork project that uses scraps of the fabric, but I didn't want to turn the whole thing into scraps, because I do like the fabric!  And I bought the buttons just for that project, which is something I almost never do (my stash is expansive, except, apparently, for ¾" black buttons.)  I let the coat dress hang on the closet door in here while I made the patchwork cat jacket, and considered my options.  "Skirt" was quickly considered and abandoned, because I realized I could make it into a jumper!

I'm not sure if I have properly conveyed just how much I like jumpers, because I know I haven't made very many of them over the years, but I do really like them, and have since the 1990s.  In fact, I had a copy of the pattern I used for this project--McCall's 7812--in the late '90s, and used it a few times.  I remembered it so fondly that I decided to re-acquire a copy a few years ago.

I finally cut the tissue for view A and here we are

It has a lot of issues, but, y'know what?  I'm wearing it right now, so it's definitely better than the coat dress incarnation.