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

 I used New Look 6068 as the base for the bodice--and then I forgot to photograph my pattern envelope, so here's a link to Pattern Review.

 I looked at a lot of mori kei underdresses for sale and noticed that many of them have blandly basic bodices with considerable volume at the waist.  Now.  Since this pattern only goes up to size 16...that wasn't going to give me any extra space at all at the waist.  So I cut the neckline, shoulders, and arm openings, and lower edge as given, then pivoted the side at the point where the side meets the arm opening.  I also cut the side straighter, just to give as much room as possible.

I considered cutting the back as given, because I don't need extra room there, but I was ambivalent enough about the whole project that I thought there was a good chance the whole thing would end up donated, so I angled the side on the back as well.

 Which meant that, when I created the arm opening facings, I had to remember to angle the sides of those, too.  And then I attempted top stitching the edged of all of the facings and got to this point
 

I'm not at all a fan of necklines and arm openings that are simply turned and stitched, and finishing them with an interior strip isn't much better, so I defaulted to facings...an that ambivalence led me to be really sloppy about how I stitched the edges like this.  I might consider sewing exposed folded strips to these openings if I try this again--although, honestly, doing the same thing with a sturdier knit might be all it needs to look...better.

On the other end of the dress, my original intention was to make a narrow ruffle from the gray knit, but...nope.  The ruffling foot did not work well with this thin synthetic knit, and the rolled edge attachments worked even worse.  There was no way I was going to leave the edges raw, so I turned to trim.

That ambivalence initially made me decide against using the wonderful wide eyelet made from (very synthetic) gray and black gingham that was a generous gift (thanks again, Mmy!), but I decided that I should at least try to make this project into something I could like, so I went with that after all.

 I didn't gather it before attaching it, though, so there's still plenty left for another project.  This also meant I could add the layer of raschel lace to the bottom without using a whole lot of it, too, as well as a layer of cluny at the top without adding a lot of bulk.

 I would have liked to have added a layer of a wide raschel lace there, too, but I didn't have anything that was as wide as I wanted that was also long enough to go all the way around (and I'm not ready to embrace the aggressive asymmetry of some mori kei stuff.)

So here we are.

Part of me is screaming that it's waaaaayyyy toooooo loooonnnnggggg, but I'm not sure if that's an objective judgment or if it's me forgetting that the whole point of this is to wear under other dresses, and then I'm not sure if that counterpoint is just because I can't think of an easy way to shorten it/don't really want to deal with that thin synthetic knit anymore.

So.  Provisionally, it's finished.  I'll know for sure once the weather gets cooler still.