a ridiculous melon dress

So originally, there was a point behind the making of this dress.

A few months ago I got Butterick Retro 6318 free with a magazine, and despite it being absolutely nothing like my usual style I was beguiled enough by the illustration to want to give it a try. I bought this citrus-print stretch cotton from Fabric Land so that the toile could plausibly be a "wearing to Lindy Hop events" dress (even though I haven't been to a lindy hop event in about two years) and sat down to cut out the pattern.

Then I stopped. And then I reconsidered.

The pattern for the skirt was literally a rectangle intended for heavy gathering, and I discounted it as soon as I realised. One, I'm not toiling a rectangle. Two, I can handle a little bit of gathering at the waist in light fabric, but because of the way I'm shaped (my high hip is very wide) I turn into a shelf if there's too much bulk there. I decided to find a different skirt and put that onto the bodice. Then I looked at the bodice, and it made me nervous. I couldn't work out how I was going to do an FBA on a pattern piece that was basically a square. The shoulder sloped straight down from the neckline creating pointy triangles, and extended into grown-on short sleeves that weren't very short-looking. Maybe pointy triangle shoulders are a legitimate thing, I don't know, but based on literally everything else I've ever made I couldn't see how it would be comfortable. And by this point, I really liked the idea of the citrus dress.

So I wussed out.

What this dress actually is is an Anna/Hollyburn mash-up. Yes, another Anna bodice, I'm sorry. But it's so quick to make and fits so well! Also it was actually the closest approximation to the original dress - high neck, grown-on sleeves, no extraneous pattern pieces. I chose the Hollyburn for the skirt because it was a level of "fuller skirt" that I knew I'd be comfortable with and I wanted to try the slash pockets on a dress (for possible future transferring onto everything). Looking at it now it doesn't even remotely give off the vibe of the original,even with the couple of pleats I added in the front, and I probably needed to go longer and fuller, but that would run the risk of turning into a dress I'd never wear. Originally I intended to use the sash from the original dress, but after cutting it out and mocking it up I decided I didn't like that either. The sash is single-layer so the wrong side shows and it just looked sad and sloppy. At some point I might try it again, in a thinner fabric, doubling up the sash so there is no wrong side on show. But for this one, I just threw the idea out.

On the plus side, I actually really like this. Novelty print cotton dresses are not my style at all, but something about the colour combination of dark and lurid makes this work for me. It's incredibly comfortable and rather than just being a dance dress, I've been wearing it all the time. More of these!

I will say, though, that I totally didn't realise how the straight edges of the citrus slices would break up the print. I almost threw out all my back shots because I thought my skirt was hitched up and the zip was super wonky, and had to look quite closely to realise that everything was fine. Also it looks like there's a huge bust dart or fold of fabric on one side, and I swear there's not. Stupid optical illusions.

I will definitely be repeating this one, though almost certainly not in novelty-print cotton (unless I find more fruit I like. Turns out I'm not as averse to fruit print as I am to most others). Even in the winter I get tons of wear out of it with a jacket and/or a wrap top over it, and it's nice to know that a dress doesn't have to be jersey to be super-comfy for day to day wear. And I will be putting these pockets on basically everything. I've been realising lately that I rarely use in-seam pockets because I'm worried about stuff falling out, but these? CARRY ALL THE THINGS.

Yup.

Next up: the expensive and time-consuming paisley dressing gown which I have THOUGHTS about...

Mild Experimentation Series: revisiting the fuller skirt

Back in my first few months of sewing, I made two versions of the Sewaholic Hollyburn skirt. I was thrilled with both of them until I realised I'd made one way too heavy and one way too light, and they both went the way of the recycling bag some time ago. The pattern has sat untouched since then, as I decided I didn't actually like full skirts anyway.

In August I did a mini-project where I took a selfie in the mirror by the front door on my way out every day to get a sense of what I was actually wearing and what I felt good in, which was fairly successful (I'd like to do it again, but now there's a lime tree in front of the mirror because my boyfriend is obsessed with plants), and it included one day where I wore my cherry print circle skirt, the oldest handmade in my wardrobe and the one I choose to keep for sentimental value as it's much better constructed than my actual first skirt was. It's not so much my style these days, but I do make a point of wearing it at least once every summer. Looking back on the picture I took that day, I found myself thinking "OK, that actually looks great," and then everything I thought I knew was called into question. Yes, I'm being dramatic. It's allowed.

This thought combined with my desire to find a cute skater dress to wear to dance events made me reconsider my anti-full skirt stance, and I decided to experiment with my Hollyburn pattern again.

This burgundy cord is the final part of my Goldhawk Road corduroy spree. I had two metres, so I knew I'd be able to squeeze a miniskirt out of the remnants and therefore if I ended up not liking the skirt I'd still be able to have something wearable in this fabric.

Construction was incredibly simple. It's quite funny coming back to a pattern I'd only ever used as a rank beginner and had thought of as quite an involved project because it had proper pockets, and realising just how simple it is. Except for the hemming. I still hate that. I'm having a bit of an argument with myself at the moment because on the one hand I think this would be a great skirt to use for a party dress, but on the other hand that hem is a pain in the backside. One day I will find a hemming method that looks good and I don't hate, I'm sure. 

The top is another Papercut Coppelia, which I've been planning since about five minutes after I published my autumn plans post. I ordered this jersey online and wasn't sure about the colour at first, but it's actually great - it's muted enough that it looks more autumnal than Christmassy when worn with reds and greens, but I'm also pretty sure I can get mileage out of it as a festive top. It does feel slightly weird, though, and I don't think it photographs very well.

Overall, I think this was a successful experiment. I've been wearing this skirt - and this outfit - pretty regularly since I made it,and the fact that the skirt is fuller than I'm used to hasn't made me feel any less like myself. I don't expect this to start a revolution in my wardrobe, but I have been craving a few more frivolous dresses lately (ridiculous emerald maxi dress aside, my projects tend to be really quite sensible and practical, and I'm feeling in the mood for a bit of nonsense) and this would be a really great skirt to add to my favourite bodices. If nothing else, a dance dress where I could securely keep my phone with me all night wouldn't go amiss. 

What am I giving the side-eye to? I've no idea. But I'm sure one of you must have done something. 

This is going to be my last completed project post of the year. Starting this Thursday I'm going to be putting up my 2017 review posts, and once those are done I'm going on hiatus until the new year. Patrick and I are going to the Christmas markets in Bruges for a few days and then we'll be hosting Christmas here for the first time. It'll actually be the first time we've spent the 25th together because we've been putting off the "who gets who for Christmas" negotiations as long as possible. But no more! We are adults, and we can handle this shit.

Up on Thursday: my favourites from 2017!

Hollyburn 2: Dance Party!

My second Sewaholic Hollyburn: 

I made this out of the cotton lawn I bought on my last visit to Bristol. Halfway through making this skirt I started to worry whether I was using it for the wrong thing (should I have made a dress? More dresses needs to be a thing, right?), but looking at these photos I knew this was the right choice. This is light and comfortable and I can wear it for all sorts of occasions. 

In celebration of this, I would like to combine my four favourite things into one post. Presenting the beautiful amalgamation of writing, sewing, photography and dancing in the first ever Slapdash Dance Party!

(If you're joining in at home, pick a piece of music that's terribly cool and you can brag about to whoever might be passing. Definitely don't play this, which is definitely not what I was dancing to. Ahem.)

(What do cool people dance to, anyway? When I'm pretending to be cool I talk about blues dance, which I love very deeply, but I have a feeling that my soul is probably more Billy Joel As A Singing Dog and not so much Grizzly Voice Of The Delta.)

(I'm never in the photos at dance events, which may be why you're getting so many of these. Sorry.) 

(I can heartily recommend "Singing Along Face" as my tried and tested modelling technique. I promise I spared you the worst of it.)

Thanks for dancing! I'm afraid there will probably be more of it coming very soon. 

Hollyburn!

(I considered calling this "Burn, Hollyburn" because terrible song puns, but since that doesn't actually make any sense I opted against it. Yes, I still remember "Sawrap Dressica Parker". What's your point?)

I wouldn't ordinarily have considered buying the Sewaholic Hollyburn pattern, because it just looks like a bog standard skirt with a shape that could easily be unflattering on me. I would have given it a resounding "meh" and carried on. But in the last week or so I've started lurking around some personal sewing blogs, and people really seem to love this one. Like, really love it. So having very recently written a post about how I was going to make things I'd actually wear, and given how few skirts my wardrobe contains because I hate every skirt that's been sold on the high street in the past six years for some reason, I decided to take a chance on it.

And it's awesome! Isn't it awesome?

This fabric is a cotton drill from my stash. I bought four metres of it ages ago intending to make a dress. When I got it home I realised that a) it was the wrong type of material for a dress, and b) the dress in question actually needed five metres. Five metres? Screw that. I put both pattern and fabric aside and more or less forgot about them until my Hollyburn envelope arrived.

This pattern is amazing. The shape of the skirt is great, the pockets are great, and it was easy to understand and sew up. My only slight problem came when I put in a zip two inches shorter than the one called for, didn't realise, and ended up with no zip in the waistband. But I redid it and all was well. Incidentally, the pattern's directions for inserting a zip are WAY easier than the method I was using and I now feel about eight times more confident in my zip insertion (hence the not crying even a little bit when I had to unpick it).

It's a super useful skirt and I know I'm going to get a lot of wear out of it. I can even dance in it (hence the Hallelujah-ing above. Never trust a skirt you can't Hallelujah in). I'll definitely be making more - I'm interested to see what it looks like in a fabric with more drape and I want to make a black one since I somehow do not own a black skirt. I also have loads of this fabric left, so you'll be seeing it again too, once I find the right pattern to pair it with.

This is my pleased face.