Swirl-a-Gray

I showed how I converted a regular sleeve pattern into a bell sleeve pattern in the last post, and now's the post for the first dress made with that modification...which, as I also mentioned, was not the first dress I had intended to make, or even had cut out, with that modification, but I decided it was less hassle to cut out an entirely different dress than to change the bobbin thread.

The original reason for hacking the sleeve pattern like that was so I could use Butterick 6470 to mimic Burda 6401, which also didn't really happen with this dress

 ...which wasn't the plan when I cut out the bodice!  I had planned to cut a gathered skirt from a streaky pink dyed eyelet, but I realized it was too sheer to work for me, so I put that cloth aside (and decided to make an apron of some sort from it, because I find myself getting into the idea of Granny Chic/CottageCore/Mori Kei/Lagenlook/"layers of vaguely vintage shapelessness" style--and, hey, the current Simplicity pattern sale at JoAnn helped me get my hands on some appropriate patterns for aprons, and, yes, another Dottie Angel pattern...not that I've even cut out the other Dottie Angel pattern I've had for years...)

I auditioned a lot of cotton broadcloth prints to use with the gray swirls

and my "if you sew it together, it goes together" ethos found lots of them good, but not great, and eventually I had the idea to...to...to look in my stash of bottom weights?  And consider something unprinted??

So I settled on this gray somewhat canvassy stuff, left over from making a pair of pants for the kiddo a few years ago.

 

 It wasn't wide enough to cut the skirt full enough to gather, but I did cut it as wide as possible and ease it onto the bodice, to give me the needed room in the skirt area.  The seam isn't as smooth as it could be, but it's more than acceptable.

Of course there are pockets

  

And I once again used the larger rolled hem attachment to finish the skirt, but even the trimmed seams would not fit through the thing, so I had to stop and start on either side of each side seam, then go back and stitch over the ends of those stitches.

  

It's not at all pretty, but, honestly,  it's a hem of a quick dress, so it's good enough.

Of course the bigger issues were with the sleeve bands, which as I mentioned in the previous post, I had used the sleeve bands from an untested pattern, and they were all sorts of wrong.  I scrapped the first bands--and by "scrapped" I mean carefully cut through the stitching that closed the band then carefully cut through the seam stitching then removed the gathering thread and then started over with the bigger, bias-cut bands.

 And I'm glad I did.  Although they maybe could've used some interfacing.

Of course I was lazy on the bands--I pressed everything appropriately before stitching them to the sleeves, which I did flat, then stitched the sides/underarms, then folded them up and stitched from the top in the ditch to catch the ironed edge of the inside of the band.  That qualifies as lazy because it only requires me to wrestle the circular cuff area around the sewing machine once for each sleeve.

 

Here is the back which is extremely like the front so I need to remember to lower the neckline in front the next time I sew this, because, as it is, it's kinda challenging to tell which is the front and which is the back before wearing it.

And I will wear it!  I'm not sure if I'll make anything else with a skirt so (relatively) sleek, but this works.  And it eliminated two pieces of fabric from the stash, which is also good.