Marm

So it's nearly fall. The nights and mornings are getting bitterly cold, and earlier in the week we woke to frost on the ground. It was time to pull the plants in. My green onions are huge and going yellow quickly; time to use 'em up fast. I did what any self-respecting old Marm would do and whipped up a batch of cheese and green onion scones.

Yum!

Then I put on this dress, mailed a letter of complaint to a local business, and knit myself a couch cover. I was supposed to go to my weekly meeting of the Old Biddies Club, but I'm on probation for being too crotchety.

Nah, just kidding. You guys know I can't knit. 

Anyway, I picked up that dress at Goodwill for 7 dollars. Highway robbery, I know, but here's what you don't know about that floral monstrosity up there. It has a full circle skirt, and pockets. Those of you who know me (ie. probably everyone bothering to read this blog) know that I think it's a crime that so much womens' clothing is sans-pockets. You think I *want* to fumble frantically through my purse every time my phone goes off? Or that I even want to carry that purse when I go out? No. I like pockets. Every dress, skirt, and pair of pants on Earth should have them. 

But I digress. The dress above is not worth 7 dollars, but the dress I thought I could make? Yeah. I thought, with a simple chop of about a foot or twelve off the skirt, this would make a really cute, 50s style sundress. The top was a little wonky though; initially I thought the neckline was cute but after putting it on again at home and wandering around for a bit to figure out the fit, I realized that it was just a bit too high to be comfortable. The top was also really tight across the top of the bust, so there was a weird, flattening effect that wasn't exactly becoming. 

Chop! In order to improve the fit, I cut a significant dip in the neckline. I also discovered some fabric damage on the top back  where the fabric was fraying right at the seams, so I cut that down as well.

I sewed a zig-zag stitch over the edges of the raw fabric to help control fraying, as well as attach the 3 layers of the dress-top to each other (2 fabric layers with some sort of shaper in between). Then a little seam binding in a complimentary colour went all the way around the neckline to cover up that raw edge without the annoyance of having to roll over a curved edge. 

Fiiiiiiiine Percale

I put my dress on again and drew a little chalk line where I wanted the shortened hem to hit. With the dress laid out on the floor again (because my table is too full of junk right now and I was trying to watch TV at the same time) I measured  out my new hem and chopped again.

Now because a sewing project just isn't a sewing project without at least 1 big, annoying screw up, I started sewing a layer of the same seam binding from the neckline around the bottom hem as well. I measured it quick and then instead of pinning, which was time consuming, just set it as I went.

And then about a half a foot from the end, I realized I hadn't measured properly. Big gap. No extra seam binding, because I was using a pack I got from the Reuse Centre. I'm assuming it's from about 19-dickety-6 because it cost 10 cents new, so I didn't have a lot of hope of finding a match at a store.

So out came the seam ripper. Of course. Many minutes later, I was winding the seam binding back up and double-folding my fabric for a new hem. Dress back on, tried it out. Weird gaping at the neckline. I put in a little panel and tried my dress back on. I had thought a belt might fix the slight bag caused by the elastic waistline but I just ended up with a weird, tucked-in look the second I moved. Darts. Put the dress back on. That's the issue with making something for yourself - it's very difficult to pin and fit something that is on your own body, so you're constantly taking everything on and off.

The fit was pretty well as good as I was going to get, but there was still something wrong. Maybe it was this:

Yikes.

Okay, that's pretty damn loud. I knew that in Goodwill, but I thought reducing the sheer amount of it would help. And it did, but not quite enough. So it was time to dump this dress into a blue dye bath. I went easy on it, just enough to tone the brightness down.

Side by side, you can see there's still a lot of colour and the pattern is still nice and clear, but the yellow and pink have been toned down. It's a little less painful to look at. I might make it darker yet, but I think I'm happy with it for the moment.

So...done?