After I started considering sewing Gunne Sax dresses, I found out about the GunneSaxOween hashtag from 2021. Me being me, I'm going to sew things from Halloween prints anyway. So! Even if it's not trendy now, I have still just finished a Gunne Sax inspired dress that involves Halloween prints.
(What I have not yet done, however, is get my better camera repaired. This plaid print seems to be a challenge for this camera to capture from across the room...)
After the annoyance of the last dress (I'm still considering my options for what to do with it--I like too many of the fabrics to want to just donate it like I usually do with dud projects), I was happy to have the idea of adding length to some dresses that I liked, but were a bit too short for comfort. That seemed like something that would be quick, easy, and greatly improve the wearability of the dresses in question.
And it worked!
First was a dress I made a few months ago, which was limited in length by the amount of fabric I had. I thought I'd added enough of the accent fabric to make it long enough, and, at first, it seemed like I had, but, no--even with my short legs, the dress was a bit too...youthful...for me.
After I had ripped up a lot of what remained of that accent fabric, for the failed patchwork dress, I realized I could have used it to add another layer of ruffle on the previous, much-liked dress. Fortunately, I had, in the efforts to find fabrics that seemed suitable for that failed project, unearthed some forgotten light blue gingham that could work instead.
The light blue gingham that was on the dress already was a smaller scale, but I didn't let that deter me.
I made it the same width as the upper skirt, so there was no gathering necessary. Side seams were done french, because I didn't want to change the brown serger thread. The hem was sewn with the quarter inch hem roller. I sewed the new layer at the same seam where the previous two had been attached. Fast, easy, and the dress doesn't feel quite so aggressively like a 1990s riot grrrl babydoll dress revival attempt.
The other rehabilitated dress is from late 2023. Note that the write up blithely talks about shortening it by six inches, and that being fine because I'm also short. It was not fine, although I do suspect that, even though I'm pretty sure I pre-laundered the fabric, it may have continued to shrink for a few washes. For whatever reason, it felt more like a generous tunic length than a short dress length. I did wear other things under it, but I wanted it to be a dress.
When I found the fabric at the thrift store a few weeks ago, I decided to get the floral interlock even though it wasn't perfectly my aesthetic, and it inspired this project because I thought it would be highly amusing to use it to extend this dress, because both fabrics have a very distinct Early 1990s Aesthetic.
They went together even better than I expected.
I had drawn the 6"-shorter lines directly on the pattern tissue, so I used that to cut the additional pieces, with the front piece on the fold and the back with a center seam. I cut the hem off of the dress, right at the stitch line, before sewing the new part on with a 5/8" seam allowance, and it also got a 5/8" hem. The total length is now 35"--since I absolutely know that I did prewash the additional fabric, I hope it will stay at 35". I'll find out whenever it gets cold enough to make a long sleeve knit dress practical again, whenever in the unforeseeable future that may be...
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!)
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.
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.
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.
(but not doll-size patchwork)
When I was cutting the patches for the tiered patchwork skirt I made in early August, I had started with a slightly different set of fabrics. The more I cut, though, the more I realized that there were two distinct themes and color schemes developing, so I went ahead and cut enough for two skirts.
The original fabric selection for everything was centered around the doll print and coordinating madras that I used for a button up shirt. I obviously went in a different direction for the first tiered patchwork skirt I made, and this one uses the assortment of prints and plaids more centered on the doll print.
There's an odd assortment of "coordinating but not" colors in the doll print, and they're reflected pretty well in the additional print assortment.
Even if it looks disjointed.
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.
The last trip to the craft thrift store saw me bring home an obnoxious doll print and a madras that coordinates so incredibly well with that doll print that I strongly suspect they were donated from the same stash. I put them together for another McCall's 6613 (with all my usual deviations from the pattern as given.)
When I say a print is obnoxious, I mean it. I am also cackling gleefully while saying it.
Eleven years ago, I made a shirt that mixed a floral and a leopard print. It was very cute, but I changed size and shape enough that it no longer fit, and I gave it away.
And now I've made another version!
It is less serious and more campy, and I am very happy with it.
I thought the pink T-shirt in the previous post and the red/gray/black plaid jacket from the post before that coordinated nicely, so thought I'd make a skirt to go with them. Turns out this is not a skirt that goes with them, but it is something I've been thinking of making for a while--well, thinking of combining these prints, at least
I picked up Simplicity 5303 from the creative re-use store
It's from 1981--so incredibly from 1981, from that largely forgotten time when it was Trendy Youthful Fashion to wear ruffly shirts and knickers (American definition thereof), or ruffly shirts--with built-in neck bows--and A-line skirts for A Professional Look.
Which is, of course, not the kind of shirt I've made from this pattern.
But, my many deviations do lend a certain air of 'knock off Gunne Sax' to it.
So, the lot of vintage patterns I shared in the previous post ended with Simplicity 6405 from 1974
and the note that I had found it completely lacking in charm and potential, unlike most of the other patterns in that lot.
But.
While waiting for the patterns to arrive, I prewashed some random pieces of cotton, including two I really wanted to mix together. The yardage amount seemed to make the most sense to use for a button-up shirt with a contrast yoke. The patterns I had on hand all had back yokes with no forward shoulder seams, so they would not be visible at all from the front. I felt like even making the collar and front band from the contrast wouldn't be enough, both in terms of distributing the print mix, and in terms of there even being enough of the main fabric to make the entire front.
What I needed, I realized, was a vintage Western-style shaped yoke shirt pattern. I could probably have hacked one from a yoke-less shirt pattern, but...wait...
This unappealingly earnest MISSES' PANTSUIT . . . DESIGNER FASHION...has a shaped front yoke...with just a few changes, could I make the kind of shirt I was thinking of?
Yes.
Hoping so much for springtime that the freak winter storm we had in mid February discouraged me from working on this extremely simple dress for a week after I started it, but finish it I did.
And then I didn't get the pictures for...several more days.
But here it is!
This is, as far a I know, the last one! And I rushed it, of course, although not after vacillating over bodice fabric for a few days.
The skirt was this one, which I sewed in 2018 from thrifted wax print
Initially, I had picked out a lightweight aqua twill to use for the bodice, but the color match was Really Not Good, and there wasn't enough of it anyway. Then I considered using another wax print, but, for various reasons, no. Then, as I was falling asleep, I had the thought: A black & white print.
So.
Good idea? Enh. Finished idea? Yeah!
