Teen Goth(ington)

Me: Hey, I have a question. 

Boyfriend: Go on.
Me: If I make a dress that's tartan on the bottom, black in the middle and that tree branch material on the top, will I look like too much of a hopeless Goth?
Boyfriend: ummm, maybe?
Me: I'm doing it anyway.

This is the Cashmerette Washington dress, which I totally wasn't going to buy but then somehow it showed up in the post. Oops. I thought the "three different materials" thing might be an interesting challenge for me since I've definitely got into the habit of making each project out of one piece of fabric. All three of these are leftovers - the tartan from my brother's pyjama bottoms, the tree branch jersey from my wrap dress, and the ponte from a massive piece of ponte I fished out of a remnant bin some time ago for no real reason. Ahem. Who wants to meet Teen Goth Jen?

How Teen Goth Jen wished to be represented: Staring into middle distance while standing next to an octopus lady drawing and holding a bottle of rum with a skull on it. For everyone's sake I decided not to recreate her make-up. 

I'm at the very bottom end of Cashmerette's size range in the waist, not so much in the hips. I decided to cut a 12 (E/F cup) at the bust and waist and grade out to a 16 at the hips. What I think I'd do next time, because the skirt seams are so low, is just cut a straight 14 in the skirt. I only had slightly less than a metre of the tartan, which wasn't a problem in terms of layout but did mean no pattern matching. Eh. 

This was incredibly easy to make up, probably one of the easiest projects I've ever done. The skirt and yoke are literally just two seams each, and the top comes together very quickly too. It gave me absolutely no trouble at all. I made it up in two sessions because of sewing machine drama (this is the work of two different machines), but it couldn't have taken me much more than a couple of hours in total. 

I really love how the back fits on this one. It's basically perfect. What do you think, Teen Goth Jen?

To be a proper representation of my Goth years, this should be piss-cheap cider rather than fancy Cornish rum, but there wasn't any in the cupboard for some reason. 

I made this without any real expectation that I would wear it (since it's literally all remnants, I wouldn't have wasted any money if I just made it because it was funny), but I think I actually will. It's not the most tasteful thing in the world, but hey, I live in London. In any given tube carriage there'll be much weirder things than me, even when I am dressed as a ridiculous fifteen-year-old grump. 

Teen Goth Jen heard that. 

Overall, a successful experiment with Cashmerette Patterns, and I look forward to getting over my fear of cutting into my aubergine print jersey to make my first Appleton dress. I'll do it this week. I will. I promised.