Tag: 9112

Thinking about dresses

Three dresses

I’ve had these three dresses hanging over my wardrobe doors for a couple of weeks now, trying to decide which is my favourite, and which I should therefore make again.

Trouble is, I haven’t really been wearing dresses lately, as I tend to reach for them only in the heights of summer and winter. Last winter was so mild we didn’t see a single flake of snow, and so I didn’t need my usual winter outfits of leggings (or bloomers and knee socks), a long petticoat, a long sleeve t-shirt, a long flowing dress, and a jumper. This summer… well, we haven’t quite reached it yet, and so I’m in a limbo of chinos and t-shirts, or ancient jeans that I really should have thrown out already.

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I wore the dress on the right (Vogue 9112, Marcy Tilton’s “Cirque” dress) to visit a friend, and it turned out to be perfect for having a picnic on the lawn, followed by having a small plastic car driven over my knees on the sofa. What more could I ask of a dress? I wore it with yoga pants, as it was always my intention for this one to be more of a tunic style. (I am also eagerly awaiting the release of the Dottie Angel Dress pattern, for tunic-making purposes.)

17/5/14

The middle dress, Advance 8065, a 1956 pattern, I wore to work on my last day at the Museum. It was comfortable, but I do need a slightly longer slip to wear underneath it, to stop it from catching on my bloomers and going all bunchy around the knees. (Either that or I need to start making my bloomers in silk rather than cotton!)

Bee dress, July 2014

I’d had the same issue the day before, when I wore a not-quite-finished dress, which had started life as a shirt but ended up with the skirt from the pattern above added to the bottom. It still needs a placket and buttons, but although it was a bit tricky to get off again, it held together okay with a big brooch at the collar!

But did I enjoy wearing it enough to finish this one and make another? At the moment I’m not sure. I feel as though a dress should be an easy option for an outfit. One garment, pop it on, add a cardigan, and away you go. Somehow the reality of having to pair a dress with a bra slip and bloomers makes it seem like more trouble than it’s worth.

1970s dress

As for this one, the dress on the left in the top photo (Butterick 4637, a 1970s pattern), I haven’t worn it more than a few times since I made it, and most of those times were as soon as it came off the machine. Even having it hanging around in full view simply isn’t tempting me to put it on. Maybe because the fabric’s quite dark, so it feels like a winter dress. Perhaps it would be better with leggings and a long sleeved t-shirt underneath. It just doesn’t feel right for summer, somehow.

I still haven’t had a proper sort-out of the side of the wardrobe that hides all of my dresses, so perhaps I need to do that before I decide anything. This year I definitely feel more drawn towards novelty prints and vintage styles than I do towards my long floppy linen dresses and long petticoats. But maybe that’s just because the weather hasn’t warmed up yet, and it’ll be tunics and petticoats and bloomers all the way once the sun comes out.

All I know is that I currently have so much stuff that I’m feeling totally overwhelmed by it. I definitely need to make a concerted effort to sew things that I’m actually going to wear, rather than being tempted by interesting patterns and pretty fabrics. Either that, or actually stop sewing for a while, and concentrate on wearing the things I have already. We’ll see.

Dr Seuss Cirque Dress

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No sooner had I blogged about Marcy Tilton’s new dresses than I found an online store with a sale, and bought both of the patterns! As you do…

I decided that I had just enough of my precious organic cotton Lorax fabric from eQuilter to make the Cirque dress (Vogue 9112), if I left off the collar. To be honest I would have left off the collar anyway, as it’s much easier to wear a necklace or a scarf with a flat neckline, and it was the shape of the rest of the dress that I was particularly drawn to.

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Unfortunately I faltered at the first hurdle, which was finding a space big enough to lay the fabric out flat in a single layer in order to cut it out! Because every single piece is a different shape, nothing’s cut on the fold and duplicated, so you really do need to be able to lay out the pieces as shown. I tried the bed, but it made my husband nervous (let us not mention the Snipping Of The Duvet Cover incident from a  few years ago) and it made my back hurt. Plus trying to cut on a squashy surface is very inaccurate, which is the last thing you need with a dress like this! I did eventually find success on the living room floor, but my back and knees were really not at all happy about it.

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Once I’d got it to a state where it was try-on-able, I could see that it’s going to be a really great summer dress! I went down a size, as I often do with patterns that are generous in the waist and hips, so this is a Vogue/Marcy Tilton size M. It’s the tiniest bit tight across the shoulders when worn with a t-shirt underneath, but I need to make some minor alterations to the centre back seam anyway, so I can easily fix that next time around.

I made very few alterations to the pattern, as it was my first time making this dress, and I wanted to make sure that I understood it before I started messing about with it! I left off the collar, but that was very straightforward. I also changed the construction order very slightly, to attach the four pocket pieces before joining the front and back of the dress at the shoulders. It was just easier to manoeuvre it through the machine that way, and it made no difference whatsoever to the outcome of the dress.

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The only other thing I did differently from the instructions was to sew the bottom hem and the neck and armhole bindings by hand, as I didn’t particularly fancy cream topstitching on this very multi-coloured fabric. It took a while, but the finish was worth it.

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I’m not 100% convinced that these pale colours actually suit me very well (a difficulty of buying fabric online!), but I plan to wear this dress with an obnoxiously bright green long sleeve t-shirt underneath it, so I think it’ll look fine. I’m very pleased with the fit, and only plan to make two alterations next time. The first will be to curve the centre back seam to match the curve of my spine, and the second will be to cut away the armholes just a tiny fraction more at the front, and also raise them a little bit as they’re quite deep.

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I wore this dress for a day of mooching about when my parents visited, and found it really comfortable to wear. The pockets are nice and big, I think the dress will be a great length to wear either with or without leggings underneath, and I have at least five pieces of fabric earmarked to make more! It seemed to fit together much more easily than the Marcy Tilton dresses I made last year, but it still has the lovely piecing and asymmetrical styling that I really like.

Top marks to this one, I can’t wait to sew it again!

Smart Casual

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I work in a museum where the dress code is “smart casual”. For many of the staff, this most often means jeans, converse, and a nice top of some description. Maybe a White Stuff or Boden dress. For the visitor services desk (where I work), it means probably not jeans, and primarily Something Warm. The museum’s temperature controlled, to look after the objects, and of course the front door’s opening all the time, so it’s largely freezing. As someone who’s pretty much always largely freezing myself, this has been presenting some sartorial challenges lately. There have been days where, despite the heater nestled under the desk, I simply haven’t taken my coat off, which doesn’t look terribly smart! (Normal rules don’t apply when you’re in the museum’s garden, holding a chicken. Obviously. I love my job.)

10414450_10153106962778829_244072257356306818_nTo try and overcome my chilliness I have been knitting a cardigan… but I’m a very slow knitter, and I’m still only a back and half a sleeve into this one. Once I get into the cables, it could be a fair while before this cardi sees the light of day. Sewing, of course is much quicker, so I’ve been on the lookout for a nice smart jacket pattern that I could whip up in lots of colours to match all my different trousers.

V1435

This is Vogue 1435, a very smart suit by Tom & Linda Platt. I’ll never wear the dress (not least because I can no longer reach behind myself to do up a back zip – stupid fibromyalgia), but the draped jacket looks as though it would be interesting to sew, and easy to wear like a cardigan over lots of different tops. The collar would keep the back of my neck warm, and it wouldn’t look as though I’ve left my outdoor coat on indoors. The pattern recommends both tweed and linen, so that’s summer and winter covered right there!

I’ve been waiting for a pattern sale to come along, because Vogue patterns at full price are out of my budget, so I almost always buy them in a sale. Except I obviously wasn’t paying enough attention, because the sale in my local fabric shop ended yesterday. Drat.

But!

The pattern sale also means new patterns, and Marcy Tilton blogged about two new dresses that she’s designed for Vogue, so I had to go and check them out.

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This is Vogue 9112, the “cirque” dress. It looks a bit short because the model’s extremely tall, but a centre back length of 35″ should bring it just about down to my knees. Again, the big collar should keep the back of my neck warm, the loose shape makes it perfect for wearing over trousers, and of course it has the all-important pockets, tucked away in the side seams. Unusually, this dress is shown in only one fabric, but I think the piecing means it would work well in different colours. As with all of Marcy’s patterns, the construction is a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, but the resulting shape makes it worth the extra little bit of brain power required.

V9108

This one’s Vogue 9108, the “apron” dress. Designed as a layering piece, it comes complete with patterns for leggings and a long-sleeved t-shirt to wear underneath. Like several of Marcy’s dresses it’s longer at the front than the back, though I think that could be easily altered on this one if you felt like it. It’s designed for stretch knits, so this would be an extremely comfortable summer dress. (There’s also a version with crossover straps at the back, which reminds me of a dress I wore constantly during the early 1990s.)

But!

I’ve made two Marcy Tilton dresses already, and I simply don’t wear them very much.

Vogue 8975

I blogged about the construction of Vogue 8975, but I haven’t worn the resulting dress more than a few times, even though it’s extremely comfortable and I really like it. Firstly, I think I made a mistake with the neckline because no matter how much I iron it, it simply refuses to stay flat. Very irritating. So I think I need to unpick that and do it again. Secondly, I’m just not quite convinced that it’s smart enough to wear to work. I have done, and nobody’s complained… but it’s not quite on a par with the Tom & Linda Platt lady in her nice swingy jacket, is it?

Vogue 8813

I made this one in January 2014, and despite being deeply in love with it, I don’t think I’ve worn it once. Okay, so the tea-dyed fabric was an experiment, and I like the way it looks, but honestly, I can’t go to work in a dress covered in (albeit deliberate) tea stains, no matter how comfortable it is. And given the colour, and the smocking, and the nature of the museum… it’s just going to look as though I’ve borrowed a 19th century smock straight out of the collection. Not ideal.

I could re-make it in a different fabric (I have plenty, and I had lots of ideas and enthusiasm once I’d finished making it!), but at the end of the day, will I ever actually put on the resulting dress and wear it? I don’t know.

I go through these phases every now and then, of deciding that I must dress more smartly for work. Sometimes it’s brogues and button-down shirts. Sometimes it’s a nice tweed jacket. Sometimes it’s vintage dresses, novelty print blouses, or lots of organic cotton chinos.

Is it time to grow up, smarten up, and become the sort of woman who wears a smart jacket to work? Or is it time to embrace my inherent need for comfort and desire for funny-shaped clothes, and just give in to the eccentric middle-aged art teacher look? And more to the point, how on earth do I decide?