Merry Main Street Dress

Happy Holidays, my sewing friends! I've been doing so much fancy sewing lately, I thought it was high time I made a really fun novelty print dress. This fabric is called "Merry Main Street" by Alexander Henry, and I searched for ages to get enough yardage for a dress. It's so perfectly retro and Christmas-y.

The pattern is vintage Simplicity 4565 with two adjustments. The first was that I lowered the neckline. I've realized with my full bust and short waist, a lower neckline is better on me. The second is the width of the pleats. Mine are about 1" wider than the pattern calls for, so I also have slightly less of them. I just didn't have wide enough fabric. I'll have to make this one again in a fancier fabric with those narrow pleats, because I am quite taken with the pattern envelope illustration. 

Source

This pattern called for a nifty little technique for the skirt opening, which saved me having to put in an invisible zipper as I've done for other half-shirtwaist dresses. You cut a dart, which is concealed in a pleat. The pattern recommended finishing with bias tape, but I decided I'd rather use my fabric. This is similar to what I did on my Dapper Day dress (vintage Butterick 8404), which had you put in a dart for the zipper. 

I wore this dress out for the first time to see a live radio broadcast of "Miracle on 34th Street," and I felt so wonderfully festive. Doesn't my house look festive, too?! I love to decorate for Christmas, and this year I managed three trees in my little house. My dear Papa made the Christmas dollhouse, and also collected the Kiddie Kars. My grandma also made the Christmas tree skirt that's beneath my big tree. Lots of makers in my family, and lots of wonderful memories with these decorations. I just love this time of the year, and it was such fun to sew up a dress just for the season.

Oxford and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas! 

Red Wool Pants

Happy December! I thought I'd start off the month right with a festive pair of trousers. I am bound and determined to perfect the fit on a pair of pants, and I am getting closer. This set is made of a red wool remnant from Britex, and my tailoring teacher drafted them for me.

On previous pants patterns, I've never got the crotch quite right. I've got a "J-shape" crotch that causes a bit of excess fabric at the front. As an aside, it astounds me the things I'm willing to confess due to sewing. The shape of my crotch is not something I expected to one day be writing on the internet about, for one. But it does create interesting fit challenges in making pants, so I mentioned this to my tailoring teacher and brought in some pants I had made to show her examples of what was happening. We ended up using one of those flexible curve rulers that holds it's shape to get it right, and that finally did the trick!

We went through several fit iterations, and in the last version we made two tweaks that I think are actually working against me in the finished pant. The first was that we took the darts in a little bit, and the second was that we raised up the back a bit. Just under the waistband, there is a simdge of fabric curling up. I think it's because they're a little snug, and a little too long, especially in the back. So a reason to make another pair to perfect it!

Wool is itchy, so I decided to fully line these. I used rayon bemberg, yet again. It's just so soft and light! I haven't done a fly front with a lining before, so I looked it up on "Threads" and found a good article in #158. It seems a bit odd, so I'm still not sure I've done it right. It's functional, though. The idea is that you hand stitch down the lining to the underlap, and as you near the end of the zipper, you leave a little gap and then handstitch the lining to the overlap. 

Oh, pants. What's funny is that on the first pair of pants I sewed (that didn't contain an elastic waist at least), I thought, "Pants aren't hard! People are nutty. These are good, maybe just a few tweaks." Well, I have to admit that those few tweaks have been hard! This pair is a big step forward, though, and I really enjoy the bright red fabric. If you've got any suggestions for me on the fit, fire away!