Brown???

When I found the surprise assortment of yardage at the regular thrift store a few months ago, I further surprised myself by actively liking a brown-based print so much.  But I did like it!

And there was a decent amount of it--more than enough to be the main fabric in another Gunne Sax style dress!  I already had several other prints to coordinate with it, too.

Except...

I realized last week that I've only been making those--and a lot of the other dresses over the last year--because they're fun to make, and not because I actually want to wear them.

So,what do I want to wear?  It didn't take much reflection to realize it was Fake Burda 6401, with no trim or ruffles--tiers are fine, but ruffles are pushing it too far toward Gunne Sax froufrou.

So!  That's what I made with most (but definitely not all) of the brown print. 

And I like it!

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!)

Remnant Dress

I had enough of the lightweight chintz print cotton twill left to eke out the bodice for another take on Fake Burda 6401.  There was enough for some patch pockets, too, and, once I realized the skirt would be a bit short, I pieced a strip to insert on the skirt.

The rose pink polyester blend used for the edges of this dress provided most of the skirt, and the ruffle and bodice lining used the fabric from the edges of this dress.

 

Is it kind of a mess?  Sure!  Will it work for wearing around the house in summer?  Yep!

Chintz Print Pullover Dress

My pedantry won't call it 'chintz' with no qualifiers, because it's a lightweight twill instead of glazed.  It's also--again, being pedantic--very much the English Granny kind of chintz print, and not the traditional Indian style.

Anyway.

 

A Hint of Fairy Tale

Oh, look--another layer cake dress

  

Persicaria

I cut a bodice from some of the fabric I got in the last visit to the craft thrift store, and then realized that I didn't like how the construction of one of the other fabrics (also from the craft thrift store) I had picked for it contrasted with it (the  bodice fabric is a very fine cotton, the other fabric is a great print on a very distinctly poly cotton blend.)  I put aside the bodice pieces, along with the rest of that fabric, which was way too short to make much of a skirt, and poked around in my fabric stash to find something that would work well with the other fabrics I had already cut for the visible facings and edge bands to go with the former bodice fabric.

Since I have been working on refining both my fabric stash and my ability to keep new acquisitions within a relatively coherent aesthetic, I pretty easily found a piece of fabric I thrifted nearly a decade ago, but was never quite sure what to do with.  There was just enough of it that, at one point, it was probably very close to being turned into a small button-up shirt, but that phase of making so many small button up shirts did end before that happened.  There wasn't quite enough of it to make a full dress, but, when adding more fabric?  Just right.

 

 

Gray and Bright

I got a lot of fabrics, the last time I went to the craft thrift store, that unexpectedly coordinated really well (plus a lot of fabrics I knew coordinated when I chose them), so, of course, my first inclination was to use them in the same project.  Maybe another layer cake dress?  I started pulling other fabrics from my stash that coordinated, and eventually decided to try making a dress or two from a mix of the new (to me) fabric mixed with stuff I've had for a while.  It seemed more...fair?...to mix new with old, instead of using up all the new in its own projects, while letting fabrics I already had continue to go unused.

I also wanted to make a nice, simple pullover dress--no patchwork this time!  ...well...relatively simple, because I did want to mix the fabrics with nods to the Gunne Sax pattern I have, mainly via visible facings, bias binding the neckline, and ruffles and more ruffles.  But.  No patchwork.  So.  It still seemed to go together very very fast.

 

Midnight Aubergine

I had a fabric in my stash, acquired long ago from...actually, I'm not sure.  It's likely it was the Walmart mill ends dollar table, sometime between 1995 and 2005, but it could have been a thrift find.  Maybe even the old Joann mill ends assortments--some source where fiber content would have been completely unknown.

I always assumed it was a petrochemical synthetic, or perhaps even acetate.  I was doing burn tests recently and decided to go ahead and torch a bit of this fabric to confirm.  It did not confirm!  The ash was fluffy soft and pale gray--rayon!

It's a relatively lightweight faille, and I think the texture was what was making me think it was...something that would melt when burned, and, therefore, something I did not necessarily want near my underarms.  Rayon, though?  I can tolerate a dress of that. 

Dark Librarian

I decided to make another layer cake dress, this time using an assortment of fabrics I'd gathered from my stash with the idea of using them for patchwork.  I then hesitated to do anything with them, because the color palette is on the darker and more muted end of my preferences

  

(Photo taken 11 days ago--I was just recovering from being sick when helloooo PMS, so I didn't work as fast as usual)

Turned out that that lack of jumping straight into patchwork gave me enough time to realize they'd work well for this kind of dress. 

As with the previous dress of this kind, it is absolutely ridiculously fun to wear.

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.

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!

An Enhanced Dress

Near the end of 2023, I used some fabric I really liked to make a dress that turned out rather short.  At the time I thought the length wouldn't bother me.

I was wrong.

Sometimes I wore a skirt under it for decorative length, but, mostly, I looked at it and despaired.  I liked the print too much to let it go, and it took until just a few days ago to realize that I could remove that pink contrast at the bottom of the skirt and add something longer. 

This revelation snowballed, and I ended up adding a lot of other things to the dress, too.

 

 I could have added more, but...didn't wanna.

Madras and Roses in the Cards

The last shirt I made involved some madras, and this project used the rest of it (scraps aside.)

It started as a simple Fake Burda 6401/Mock McCall's 8197.

But.

I have recently been exposed to Magnolia Pearl, and while, honestly, I recoil from the shapeless post-apocalyptic whimsy of the brand, it did remind me that I can put appliqués on dresses (as opposed to the project idea I've had for an appliquéd jacket, fabrics for which I've been squirreling away already.)  It seems to have been six years since I last added appliqués to a dress.

So, I dug around for my largest chintz motifs, and anything else I might add, and, after taking way too long to sew the basic, simple dress itself, I ended up with this 

 

Were these the best decisions?  Doesn't matter! Those appliqués aren't going anywhere now!

Replacing the Upcycling

About five years ago, I made bodices to use with thrifted skirts--one with a fake Burda 6401 bodice, and one with Simplicity 9153's extended shoulder bodice.

I wore them a lot.

So much, in fact, that the delicate thrifted skirts started wearing out.  I tentatively mended some of the problem areas, but, honestly, it was getting to the point where the mends were stronger than the fabric, so I knew it was time to replace the entire skirt on both of them.

My last visit to the craft thrift store was made with hope of finding some fabric I could use to that end, and I was thrilled to find nearly 9 yards of a lightweight black woven cotton (if there's anything synthetic mixed in, a burn test said there's not much of it.)

I did take some time to make a complete dress before getting to the skirt replacements...mainly because the black of this new (to me) fabric is not the same black as the old bodices, and I wanted at least at least one loose summery black dress that was all the same black.

But then!  On to the new skirts!

Ready for Summer

I like making loose, high waist, pullover dresses from lightweight cottons for summer wear.  My original plan this year, in that regard, was to use some of the lightweight woven black fabric I got from the craft thrift store to replace the worn-out thrifted skirts on some dresses I made a few years ago--I thought the fabric felt like a poly/cotton blend, so wouldn't really want to use it for a top/shirt/bodice.

I decided to do a burn test on it, just to laugh at how much of a plastic blob it turned into.  Well.  It did not turn into any kind of plastic blob, instead burning to a crumbly black...not exactly ash, because when has a burn test ever behaved exactly like the charts say it should?  So I decided that meant maybe there was enough cotton content to use for a top/shirt/bodice after all.

I used my "fake Burda 6401 modified to a fake McCall's 8157" and decided to go wild with a tiered skirt and here we are

 Honestly...it ended up a bit too long.  I eventually fixed that.

Black Eyelet Babydoll

Happened into a Walmart one day right after they had obviously restocked their mill end precuts, and so was able to buy a lovely "3 yards for $8" piece of black cotton double border eyelet.  I knew from the start that I wanted to use it for a Fake Burda 6401, and that conviction grew even more sure after I made the Fake McCall's 8197 modifications to the basic Fake Burda 6401 pattern.

The main thing that kept me from actually making this dress?  The fact that there was white thread in the serger, and I had a lot of other things I wanted to sew that would work much better with white serger thread than with black serger thread.  However!  I finally got to a point where I felt like I was through with those projects--and wasn't thinking of more that I wanted to make immediately--so I finally changed the serger thread.  We won't discuss how long ago that was; we shall just rejoice that it happened.

And so I sewed the eyelet into the intended dress

No, wait, it gets better.

Seasonally Inappropriate

I have a few projects I want to change the serger thread to make, but I don't actually want to deal with changing the serger thread yet, so I went with another project that could get away with white overlocking.

Chintz Babydoll

Another try at adapting Fake Burda 6401 to have a Fake McCall's 8197 variation (again, I do have McCall's 8197, I just disagree with some of its design decisions and wanted something with a similar look but different construction/shapes.)  I feel like this is where I want it!

...although this particular dress may be a bit too pretty for me...

Green Madras Babydoll

Years ago, I thrifted several yards of a green/cyan/beige cotton madras.  There was enough that I had considered making a suit for the kiddo, but his style (and leg length) no longer work with that idea, so I decided to use it for the idea mentioned a few posts ago, of making a variation of my fake Burda 6401 that would be somewhat of a fake McCall's 8197 (which I have, but I am irritated by its scooped back and lack of interfacing.)

The main difference between 6401 and 8197, when viewed from the front, is that 8197's neckline is significantly more scooped, and the waistline is higher.  The first attempt at the pattern variation was a bit too scooped in the neck and high in the waist.  At least I figured that out before attaching the skirt, so I only hassled with removing (and re-using) the sleeves.

The neckline is no longer bra-revealingly low, but the waistline could maybe go up a bit more if I really want to emulate 8197's lines...which...maybe, maybe not.  This still definitely works.