Well. Don't like it.

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.

 

 

Pattern Mash Up Experiment (with a Weird Cheater Quilt Print)

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.

Thrift Cloth! From the Regular Thrift Store!

It's been a long time since I've seen yardage in the regular thrift store, and probably longer since I've seen any I wanted to buy.

I had to run some errands last Friday, and stopped in the thrift store, just because I could.  I have a list of things I'm hoping to find in thrift stores, and I was happy to find one of those: a mechanical Bissel sweeper (in a cheerful blue, too.)

The section where it was is next to the racks where they hang bed sheets, curtains, and other large fabric home goods.  I usually ignore those, but, since I was in that area while making sure the sweeper worked, I naturally glanced over...and saw a print that was absolutely yardage.

I wouldn't say it was calico, because it was also very obviously possessed of a high polyester content, but it did have a 1970s/80s ditsy calico style floral print.  I quickly noticed other pieces of yardage hanging next to it, and then some more a few feet away.  Some of them...I even liked!

Oh, hey! A person clothes!

I have been doing doll things, but decided this week that I should sew a dress with some of the coordinating fabrics I picked out the last time I went to the craft thrift store.

While I had picked them with the intent of making another proper Gunne Sax dress, I don't particularly want to wear a proper Gunne Sax dress right now (they have too much waist definition, and I still don't feel like have a waist.)  What I have enjoyed wearing is the babydoll dress I made a few months ago

except

it's just a tiny bit short. So!  I thought I would revisit that same dress design, but...just...an inch or two longer.

 

(and then I took photos fast this morning before wearing the dress for the day, and then discovered that the full-dress photos are all blurry, because I'm still not used to the 50mm lens.  The close-up pictures are sharper!)