The Sell-Out #1: Butterick 5890 - The Alice in Wonderland Smock Bubble Dress

I am no fan of store-bought patterns. I haven't used them in over a decade. I like to make my own. However, the other day I was at a thrift store and came across several boxes of vintage patterns. As they were $.30 apiece, I thought playing with them might be fun. Most of them were of hideous 90s dresses, but a few were kind of interesting. This was one of them. I was particularly interested in the pointed yoke and the pleated front. Also, I wanted to see how they'd patterned the pockets. 

Since, I used a pre-made pattern for this one, I called it a "sell-out." However, you know I can't follow directions, right? In fact, I looked over the directions and followed about half of them. That is the exact reason I hate store-bought patterns. They take you through all these unnecessary and confusing steps when all you have to do is think of the next logical step. For instance, they wanted me to add a zipper. Why in the world would I need to add a zipper to a dress that I'm practically swimming in?

I'm not really a good body type for this kind of dress as I don't really have shoulders, so I decided to add sleeves. This is what happened. Ick:

It looks like a feed-sack--exactly the look I was NOT going for. This was also the smallest size available on the pattern. After making it, I realized the pattern packet read, "Maternity" on the front. Oops. No wonder.

So, then I remembered I had a really comfortable, cute H&M smock dress hanging in my closet. I got it out and studied it.

My fixes were to take in the sides about two inches, peg the sleeves so they didn't stick out like a weird Sci-Fi costume, and hem the dress to just above the knee.

The brown and blue diamond fabric is left over curtain material from my sister's house. The blue skirt material is, I think, from hospital sheets.

Details, details:

Oh, so proud of the symmetry. Notice it around the neckline, the point, the shoulders, even the sleeves, please.

This small peg makes a big difference.

Fearful symmetry. (That is where the unnecessary zipper was supposed to go. Maybe next time, I will just put the fabric on the fold and skip this seam entirely.)

Deep side pockets. Mmmm comfort!

The End!...Just kidding, it's not.

So after posting this, I was trying the dress on, and you know what? I didn't love it. It wasn't different enough for me. I dunno, it was too poofy or something around the bottom. So I tapered the bottom hem in a little bit on both sides at an angle. Here I pulled the sides way out to exaggerate what I did. (The dress won't hang this way.)

I just think the tapering on the bottom helps to balance the architecture on the top.

Yeah, this is way more "me". . .More Asian-y looking.

The REAL End!

Chanel Inspired: Argyle Skater Outfit

A few days ago, my friend and former roommate, Brandy McNeace gave me a piece of this pink and grey argyle sweatshirt fabric. It was about 30" x 60":

It made me think of those Scottish Chanel dresses like this one:

It also made me think of this little skater outfit in a Clark's ad that I cut out a few months ago and really liked for some reason:

I also have been seeing a lot of dropped shoulder patterns for fall and winter lately like the one in this picture from October 2013's Marie Claire:

So I made this. It went really fast. I think pattern, cutting, and construction took about an hour:

I didn't do much to keep things symmetrical since I had to be a bit utilitarian within the dimensions of the fabric. That's also probably why I got it done so fast. Symmetry adds a lot of time to construction. The grey bands around the bottom hem of the shirt and the sleeves comes from that green skirt I used to make these couple shirts.

I did something different with the sleeves. It is sort of a modified batwing. (Most batwing shirts are constructed of one piece of fabric.)

Also, it is two pieces: a shirt and a skirt. This way they can be worn together or separately. (The elastic comes from the grey skirt I used to make those same couple shirts.)

The End!