Layers of Halloween

I have been shuffling through my cottons with the idea of making clothing that mixes them more aggressively than I usually do.  I am not one to shy away from mixing prints, but I do feel like I'd fallen into a rut of how I did it: a shirt with contrast bands; a dress with a single contrast print at the skirt hem; patchwork (so much patchwork.) 

The Gunne Sax/Gunne Sax Inspired dresses (and the dress I revisited while planning them) did help shake up my ideas of how and where to place the other prints, at least a little.  I definitely think that visible facings are something permanently added to my arsenal of contrast print placement options. (Those projects also helped me think more about using lace and trim just...in general, although it may be a while before that's something I think of with any frequency.)

I recently stumbled upon the "layer cake dresses" made by PerfectJacket on YouTube.  Those looked, in a general kind of way, like fun, so I grabbed a stack of Halloween and other prints and ran with my version of the idea

 

 It is ridiculous.

SciShirt

The last craft thrift store visit found a Michael Miller print called STEM Squad, which I immediately grabbed with The Child in mind.  The Child approved, and I planned to make another McCall's 6613...eventually.

I decided now was the time, and The Child requested that it not be a full button up shirt.  I think I managed to convey the fact that I could not make a regular ol' T-shirt from this fabric, but said I could make something like the Shrek print shirt I made six years ago (and which was recently banished from the house because Shrek is just not considered funny anymore.  I sent the shirt to a friend who has an online presence based in that kind of kitsch.)  That form factor was deemed acceptable, and I finished it today.

 

It was, appropriately, experimental.

Autumn Apron

After finishing the pumpkin print pullover dress last week, I thought it would be fun to make an apron to layer over it.  I had some autumn harvest themed print fabric—it had been in Mom's stash, and not a print I might have chosen on my own, since it's heavy on browns and oranges.  It does have a lot of sagey blue green, which happens to match well with one of the things I'd gotten recently from Deb's Lace, and which I'd almost (when calling the color "verdigris") used on the copper print pumpkin dress, but figured it would be too fussy.

Well, what's better than a fussy apron, eh? 

 

I mean, yeah, it could be fussier.  It could also be less prone to showing stains, but, honestly, if I ever wear this while cooking, I'd...probably wear my usual apron over it...

Halloween Eyesore (affectionate)

So.

In early 2001, I got some super clearance Halloween fabric from Joann.  I think it was about 4 yards?  Dark purple ground with a scattered "jack'o'lanterns in funny hats" print.

I used little bits of it over the years, including doing a dye/bleach experiment on a yard of it that turned the ground a nice pink, but I still had a solid two yards in the stash, waiting.

But then...

Time had passed and I had gotten more aware of things—one of the "funny hats" was a sombrero, and I had finally reached the state of knowing that was not acceptable.

I didn't want to donate the fabric, both because I didn't want it falling into the hands of someone who wouldn't think twice about the sombrero, and also because, cultural insensitivity aside, I liked the print.

I decided a while ago that I could appliqué something over every instance of the problematic pumpkin, and settled on the idea of hearts cut from a coordinating plaid fabric.

I did not, however, want to hand cut all however many hearts that would be, so I set the project aside.

A local friend got a laser cutter and said I could use it, so I thought that would be a great opportunity to make all the hearts. Then the friend moved. (well OK they moved closer, but they haven’t set the laser cutter back up yet.)

When I got the die cutter, I ordered a set of heart shaped dies, hoping one would be the right size to cover the corrupt curcurbit. And it is!

So I finally started seriously thinking about making a dress from that fabric...and knew I'd need to mix another print with it to have enough.  And that started me thinking of maybe making another GunneSax-type dress.  Bonus that the Gunnes Sax dress pattern I have has an A-line skirt, meaning that there would be fewer possible pumpkins to cover than if the upper skirt were a gathered rectangle.

A proper Gunne Sax dress, though, seemed too formal, so I decided to make (more) modifications to Fake Burda 6401/Mock McCall's 8197, with the goal being something informal and easy, with a pullover nonchalance.

I mean, "nonchalant" once you disregard the fact I had to appliqué 80-some hearts on the primary print.

 

Fortunately, I do still love zigzagging densely around little fused-on fabric cut outs, so that part wasn't so bad.

Simple Pumpkin Shift

I have been working on a probably way-over-complicated dress, part of the complication of which involves fusible web.  I knew I didn't have enough fusible web for all the parts I needed, so I did what I could, ordered more, and then did as much assembly as possible while waiting.  I decided that, when I got to the point where I could do no more, then I'd take a (relative) break by making a super simple dress while waiting for the fusible web replacement.

It's another Fake Burda 6401, this time back at the Burda imitation itself, and not the McCall's 8197 emulation (nor the experimental hybrid Gunne Sax abomination that's using the fusible webbing...)  I also followed the lead of the all-black Fake Burda 6401 with the tiered skirt, and did that with this, which did make it a little fussier than it could have been, but still not bad, especially since I managed to get the ruffler set right for what I needed. 

I was able to get it cut out and assembled all today!

Gunne Sax Sorbet

I had picked three (actually four) fabrics to use for my first try at making a Gunne Sax dress, cut everything out, then realized I didn't want to use the polyester-heavy rose print fabric with the other prints, so I found another fabric to coordinate with that and made a different dress than I'd originally intended.

That did leave me with all of the other fabrics cut out and ready to go, so I poked and prodded my stash until it coughed up another fabric that would be suitable for this pattern and coordinate with the other two print fabrics.  (The fourth fabric is a solid, used in areas that aren't meant to be seen.)  I settled on what was left of the pink kettle cloth, left over from a long skirt I made last year.

I knew the remains of the kettle cloth probably wouldn't be enough to make the peplum, and I was fine with that.  It turned out, though, that there also wasn't enough to cut the full sleeves, which turned out better than fine, because I had had a growing ambivalence about making a long sleeved dress from such bright and summery colors.  Short sleeves easily rectified that!

 

The hem volume is ridiculous, and that's with making it about a yard less because I was, originally, working with only the cluny lace I had, and my largest, widest piece was only 4½ yards, while the pattern wanted 5 3/8 yards.  Of course I didn't let that stop me.

Small Shirt

I have not been posting, here, much of the doll clothes I've been making.  This is mostly because I haven't been making as many, but I am getting ready to send a box of doll stuff to a friend, and I'm finally making myself sit down and sew the things I've been planning for that.

The one I'm sharing here is another attempt at a proper menswear-style shirt, with front band and stand collar, although this one is smaller than the version I made previously for a vintage Ken, and, also, I realized that I did not want to subject my friend to having to deal with fastening wonky working buttonholes at that scale, so I used the smallest 0000 vintage snaps I had (I have modern 0000 snaps that are not as small.)

 

I didn't add fusible webbing inside the collar to act as interfacing, and that's a slight regret.  I also didn't do snaps at the cuffs, as much because I realized the intended doll's hands will fit through the cuffs if they're tacked closed as it was because I didn't have anymore of the white buttons.

I did do a little pleat in the back of this shirt, because the old Blythe-size shirt pattern I (mostly) used had one. (It's my own pattern.) 

I forgot to take a photo with a proper ruler, to give a sense of scale, but I was able to crop this photo to include a bit of the cutting mat on my sewing table.

I still don't think I could have a chance of making this shirt from anything but the most delicate cottons.  This has become the closest I've gotten to wanting Liberty tana lawn for anything--still, this second-hand, "leftover from someone else buying a human-size shirt and cutting it up for their own doll clothes" fabric worked really well.