...or possibly early 2000. It's Style 2494, and it has a 1994 copyright, but I'm pretty sure I got it when I worked at Joann from mid-1999 to early 2000
Having finally made it, with enough time to develop my sewing skills so much more than what they were back then... Well. If I had made it immediately, I probably would have thought the problems were with my skills, and not with the pattern itself.
Now, though, I know enough to be unhappy with the pattern itself.
So!
I was extremely unhappy with the last two projects, and I think a lot of it had to do with the desire to go outside my usual fabric choices.
I still didn't want to default back to printed cottons, though, and decided to use some fabric I'd thrifted ages ago: a wool twill plaid in purples, with gray and white, bafflingly block fused with some super slippery synthetic tricot.
I knew I wanted to make a coat from it, and I knew the fact that the plaid was large meant I'd have to be cautious with fabric use, so none of my preferred princess seam, flared coat patterns would work. I'd ordered a bunch of clearance patterns from the Simplicity site a while ago, including McCall's 7847 (image from the Simplicity site, where it's still available as a PDF as of this post)
It's a Learn to Sew pattern, meant for faux fur, but it had the simple construction I wanted, and I was confident it would work with this wool instead of faux fur. Even with the pattern matching (horizontal only), and adding way more interfacing than the pattern wanted, and adding welt pockets, it seemed like it should go together quickly. And it did! It's just that the work ended up being spread over nearly three weeks, because first there was PMS, which made me question the previous things I'd sewn and my ability to ever make anything good again, then there was my period, which destroyed motivation, and then I got sick (all in my tonsils), which also didn't do much for motivation.
Then I finally finished it and it was super disappointing as a coat
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.
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 thrifted Simplicity 8042, from 1992, several years ago, because it's just so ridiculous.
I very probably would have worn it in 1992--well, view 1 or 3. View 2's collar is a bit too...Knock Off Laura Ashley Romantic to align with my tastes.
I got the pattern as a curiosity, never thinking I'd actually make it, in part because it requires a lot of fabric--over three yards of 60" for view 1. And it needed to be soft, flowing fabric, too.
It turns out, though, that I just needed to take a new look at a piece of fabric that I thrifted in 2017. It's a large floral print, a lightweight plain weave rayon, in purples and pinks and greens on an ivory ground, over 4 yards of 60" wide, that I had, for years, been looking at and thinking "This would make a lovely flowing dress but I would never wear such a thing, because the pale ground means that every bit of my underwear would show right through." I never thought of getting rid of it, though, because the print was just so, to be cliché, me.
And then things clicked and I made it into view 1 of this shirt.
And it is, indeed, ridiculous.
When I was in college, Mom heard about a weird fabric store in a town we never otherwise visited, so of course she decided we should go. If I remember correctly, the ground floor (big windows, lovely natural light) was proper bolts of fabric, and odds and ends of trim on spools, bulk zippers, random other craft items, and the second floor (no windows, all fluorescent light) held tables and tables of random lengths of fabric. I don't remember if it was sold by the pound, but it seems likely.
Surprisingly, I was restrained, and got only a few pieces of fabric. Not surprisingly, I still have two of them--or, at least, I had two, until I used one for this vest
I would have adored a vest made from this fabric when I got it 30 years ago, but any vest I might have tried making back then would not have been this one, so I'm glad I waited.
To address the fit issues of the previous project, I decided to make an underbust or waist cincher version. This was partly because I felt like I'd be more likely to wear a waist cincher, as a sort of large belt that won't try to work its way up over my abdomen, and partly because I didn't have enough extra long cable ties to make many more full-length bustiers.
So I traced a combination of the size 14 pieces that I had overconfidently cut out of Simplicity 5006 before, and size 20, figuring things would average out. I also decided to go with ¾" seam allowances instead of the normal 5/8"
and this time it ended up a bit large
And that was good! Because, due to the figure-skimming nature of this kind of garment, it doesn't look too large
I started this purse in summer of 2019, got to the point of being ready to sew all the sub-assemblies together, then put it into a bag and didn't touch it again until yesterday. Sewing a purse that I do like in the meantime did not encourage me to return to this project with any speed, either.
However, I have been doing a tiny bit of stash organizing (and admitting that a lot of the fabric I'd picked out to donate, then decided to keep and sew through...nah, I really should donate, especially after a burn test showed that one--a nice shirt weight--was a polyester blend, which I would never use.) I decided to finish this purse so I could eliminate the bag it had been stored in, and here we are
It's not great, and it was as infuriating to finish as I expected it to be, and I have no need for another purse, but I still kinda like it?
I decided to make a new mask a few days ago
It's the mask pattern from Craft Passion, that I added a bit of height to for Husband's masks...then forgot about that extra bit when I made this mask for me. That means this mask has...very full coverage on my face.
As with the other masks I've made from this pattern, the lining is a high thread count sheet, and there's a layer of heavy duty embroidery stabilizer inside.
I used elastic for the behind-the-head straps, while my previous adult masks have used ties. I'm still getting used to putting this mask on.
The vintage cartomancy print fabric was a gift, which very unfortunately has offensive fortune teller stereotypes scattered between the cards. I had kept the fabric with the sole intention of possibly using the cards for appliqués, so I was happy to discover that I could fussy cut the mask pieces to avoid the people in the print.
And I was even happier when I realized I could get the Friendly Warning cards onto the mask. (and even more amused when I looked up what the Queen of Diamonds means in cartomancy, and..."friendly" is not it.)
My last post was a pair of pants I made with fabric left from making a blanket.
And then I looked at the fabric left from the pants and thought...hmm...is there enough to make a skirt?
The answer is yes (provisionally)
