After I started considering sewing Gunne Sax dresses, I found out about the GunneSaxOween hashtag from 2021. Me being me, I'm going to sew things from Halloween prints anyway. So! Even if it's not trendy now, I have still just finished a Gunne Sax inspired dress that involves Halloween prints.
(What I have not yet done, however, is get my better camera repaired. This plaid print seems to be a challenge for this camera to capture from across the room...)
I took the finished photos of this on July 29, and shared some of them on social medial but apparently completely forgot to record them here
Basically, I took the "add the peter pan collar to the cut-on sleeve pullover dress" idea that I tested here, made it from a less graphically-bold print, and added appliqué
It is very silly.
I'll start by saying that I completely forgot about making the Halloween Eyesore dress from the pattern I hacked to be able to make a pull-over version of Simplicity 8729.
So! I got to the point, while cutting this one out, where I suddenly had enormous doubts that there would be enough room to actually get this on and off over the head, due to the longer upper back and the A-line skirt (in contrast to the high waist and gathered skirt of the pullover dresses I usually make.)
So! I cut the center back bodice and skirt pieces to make room for a zipper. I knew that would make the back a bit narrower, but I figured that wouldn't matter with a zipper there.
Then! The first zipper I installed--vintage, with metal teeth--self destructed when I tried to zip it back up (a lot of teeth popped off.) Fortunately, the zipper went in and fell apart before the side seams were sewn, so it was easy enough to reach everything to replace it, even if the nylon coil zipper color match was nonexistent.
I dragged myself through the rest of the project, after the doubts and inconveniences had reduced the already tepid enthusiasm about the project, which was meant as a test more than anything (again, because I had forgotten about already having made a dress with this pattern, although, granted, that one wasn't as ruffly extravagant as this one was going to be.)
But I did finish!
And then I tried it on and it's still generous enough that the zipper is unnecessary for getting it on and off.
That patchwork dress I made last week?
It looks like this now.
And I just sorted the fabrics and put them away in the small yardage storage...which means there's now more fabric in there than when I started, because I used some fabric from pieces in the large yardage storage. This makes me grumpy, but not as grumpy as that dress, so it's fine.
After the annoyance of the last dress (I'm still considering my options for what to do with it--I like too many of the fabrics to want to just donate it like I usually do with dud projects), I was happy to have the idea of adding length to some dresses that I liked, but were a bit too short for comfort. That seemed like something that would be quick, easy, and greatly improve the wearability of the dresses in question.
And it worked!
First was a dress I made a few months ago, which was limited in length by the amount of fabric I had. I thought I'd added enough of the accent fabric to make it long enough, and, at first, it seemed like I had, but, no--even with my short legs, the dress was a bit too...youthful...for me.
After I had ripped up a lot of what remained of that accent fabric, for the failed patchwork dress, I realized I could have used it to add another layer of ruffle on the previous, much-liked dress. Fortunately, I had, in the efforts to find fabrics that seemed suitable for that failed project, unearthed some forgotten light blue gingham that could work instead.
The light blue gingham that was on the dress already was a smaller scale, but I didn't let that deter me.
I made it the same width as the upper skirt, so there was no gathering necessary. Side seams were done french, because I didn't want to change the brown serger thread. The hem was sewn with the quarter inch hem roller. I sewed the new layer at the same seam where the previous two had been attached. Fast, easy, and the dress doesn't feel quite so aggressively like a 1990s riot grrrl babydoll dress revival attempt.
The other rehabilitated dress is from late 2023. Note that the write up blithely talks about shortening it by six inches, and that being fine because I'm also short. It was not fine, although I do suspect that, even though I'm pretty sure I pre-laundered the fabric, it may have continued to shrink for a few washes. For whatever reason, it felt more like a generous tunic length than a short dress length. I did wear other things under it, but I wanted it to be a dress.
When I found the fabric at the thrift store a few weeks ago, I decided to get the floral interlock even though it wasn't perfectly my aesthetic, and it inspired this project because I thought it would be highly amusing to use it to extend this dress, because both fabrics have a very distinct Early 1990s Aesthetic.
They went together even better than I expected.
I had drawn the 6"-shorter lines directly on the pattern tissue, so I used that to cut the additional pieces, with the front piece on the fold and the back with a center seam. I cut the hem off of the dress, right at the stitch line, before sewing the new part on with a 5/8" seam allowance, and it also got a 5/8" hem. The total length is now 35"--since I absolutely know that I did prewash the additional fabric, I hope it will stay at 35". I'll find out whenever it gets cold enough to make a long sleeve knit dress practical again, whenever in the unforeseeable future that may be...
The bodice is Simplicity 9153, which I've used many times (I'm wearing a dress made with it now), and I like the individual fabrics, and I like the way they combine when next to each other, but, overall...no. It's incredibly Not Me.
I didn't realize how odd the cheater quilt print was when I picked it out at the craft thrift store--I mostly noticed that it was in colors centering around purple, and that was enough to charm me into purchase.
It wasn't until I started working with it for this project that I realized that it was basically made up of diagonal stripes, and fairly high contrast, too
So I played with that, and also encountered a problem with it. However! The main point of this project was to try adding the collar, from a 1950s pattern, to the old stand-by 1980s extended sleeve bodice, and that seems to have worked out nicely.
