Grayyyyyyyy

The return (somewhat) of cooler weather + PMS made me say "Heyyy, I wanna sew some mori kei layers to wear under the dresses I've been sewing."  The PMS also conspired to make me ignore the fact that I dislike sewing thin synthetic knits and so decide to purchase a 4-yard-for-$4 dark gray thin synthetic knit precut at Walmart.

The first thing I wanted to try sewing from that knit was a pair of leggings, using the leggings pattern I cobbled together years ago from an old copy of Simplicity 9721 that I haven't owned for years.  Considering how much disappointment came from the last time I tried a different leggings pattern, and also considering that there were four yards of 56" fabric to experiment with, I figured I should at least try it, since the last pair of leggings I had made with it are things I still wear. (And I seem to have made them before starting this blog.)  Now, though, those were made with a 4-way stretch, and extending the waistline up by 5" created enough room to comfortably encompass all of my diastasis recti bulge mom belly.  The dark gray thin synthetic is only a 2-way stretch,and the 5" extra made it enough to go aaaaabooouuut halfway up the bulge, and also not quite all the way to the ankles

Yes, that's a picture of them hanging awkwardly on a hanger, which doesn't exactly illustrate the fit issues.  I'm wearing them now and my ankles are a bit cold.  The waist band doesn't seem like it's going to be an issue, in terms of comfort.  The main thing will be to see how bad the knee and posterior fabric growth will be by the end of the day, since 2-way stretch just doesn't have the recover that 4-way has.

Still, I considered that pair of leggings enough of a success to go ahead and try to use up all the rest of the fabric in another project, the success of which is still TBD

StripePants

And another KwikSew 2544, this time using some incredibly soft brushed twill that the destashing-for-relative person brought

Not-so-small jeans

The kiddo is at a size where he's right between commercially-made pants sizing, so I decided to make him a pair of jeans, aided greatly by finding a 2 yard mill end precut of heavy (although stretch) denim at Walmart.

Of course I used KwikSew 2544--he'll be in that size range for a few more years, so there's still a lot of that pattern in our future (including the  very next post I'm going to make.)

Change of a Dress

McCall's 7742 ©2018 looked enough like the dresses I've been making this year that I decided to get a copy when it was on sale

The photographed view,with its ¾ ribbon-tied sleeves is cute, but the point of making the loose floaty dresses is so they can be worn comfortably in the stinkin' hot summer, so sleeves were out.

I picked some overprinted madras--another bit of yardage from the person dealing with a relative's stash--and laid it out to be cut...where it stayed for a week or so.  It stayed ~ready to go~ for so long that the forecast looked like it was going to finally catch up to the calendar, so I hustled to make it to wear before the temperatures dropped.

 I am...ambivalent.