Time for Tea Break

Dear blog readers, today a single tear runs down my face because #sewdollyclackett is over.  Part of me wishes it could go on forever, or at least until cold weather returns and makes me abandon dresses. Channeling the style of Roisin has been nothing but fun and there are several more crazy shoe purchases I'd like to rationalize. Many thanks to Sarah from Rhinestones and Telephones for thinking up/hosting this wonderful sew-a-long.   Congrats and well wishes to Roisin and Nic on being awesome and for their impending marriage. Even though I've never met you in person, you seem perfect for each other and I hope you have a great life together.  I'd toast you with some wine, but Froggie seems to have consumed it all.  Should have never bought him that wine glass with a frog in it.

Anyway......before closing the book on #sewdollyclackett there is one more dress to share. It's the "My cup of tea" dress complete with more Miss L Fire shoes.  Previously purchased shoes, mind you cause my husband is reading the blog now. "I read something the other day that says you're neglecting our son?""

For my third and final Dolly Clackett dress I decided to break out the rusty pattern drafting skills and finally knock off this Eva Franco design from last summer.

Awesome dress right! Even more awesome is that Modcloth keeps the web page accessible so you can zoom in on all the seaming details. It's hard to see since the bodice is a solid color, but it has diagonal seam lines that divide the bodice into 3 segments.  These seam lines serve as a design element and provide the bust shaping for the garment. It's basically an armhole princess with a slightly different shape. (This garment is on my sewing inspiration pinterest board if you want to take a closer look.)

The stash was lacking matryoshka doll fabric, so I went with an equally bold linear print "Genmai tea cup" from Alexander Henry Fabrics. Mmmm Japanese tea cups, I love you so.

Stash busting effort having been made I went and purchased Kona cotton in Royal Blue for the contrast. In my defense the stash has very few solids that aren't black or gray. My favorite tea cup cotton demanded better.

I've yet to draft my own bodice block for pattern drafting, tsk tsk bad pattern drafter, no cookie.  So I went the easy way out and used the Emery bodice with SA removed as a base.  After some enthusiastic cutting and a little dart manipulation, a diagonal princess line bodice was mine. Muhaaaa!

Maybe you can see them a little better on the inside.

Yeaaaaah look at all those nice seam joins.....is it weird that I said that?

The skirt is divided into four quarters, each with two 4" box pleats. Completed skirt length is 22" with a 5" contrasting hem band. The skirt pattern is almost a rectangle, but with the side seams angled out/hem slightly rounded to give the skirt a little more flare.

I'm 90% sure the original dress did not have any pockets.  But home sewing means we can have all the pockets we want snitches! Side seam pockets were added so that I could lounge around with my hands in them during most of the photo shoot.  I need a stylish to shout, "Get your hands out of your pocket for 5 minutes!" They would also have to yell. "Don't look at your husband, it will mess up your camera mojo."  Cause my husband was off to the side looking at me like I'd lost my mind.  What's weird about this pose? BTW - I'm pretending that rock is an Easter egg. Totes normal for Easter weekend, right? Just say yes and we'll move on.

There are two areas I'd tweak on a redo.  First would be to have move the straps in because they are in the awkward "almost slipping off the shoulder" location. That was a drafting error on my part.  Secondly I'd narrow the contrast piece on the bodice just a bit. It's not egregiously large, but the bodice was drafted the bodice to be sewn in a solid.  I just like to change my sewing plans at the last minute. MOAR tea cups in the dress! Frog commands it!  Frog also commands that I hand over the peanut butter cups.

Oh there is one more confession that needs to be aired.  I had to make the bodice a little big in the back to have evenly sized pleats.  My circumference in the front is exactly 8" but I'm more like 7.25" in the back.  As much as I like a snug fitting bodice, who wants weirdly narrow pleats in the back of the dress. So my dress is about an 1" too roomy in the waist. I just cinched my belt on tightly and tried to forget about it.  Besides, Froggie tells me that it's just extra cake ease.

Mmmm yeah, I might need that cake ease cause there's one waiting for me in the kitchen right now. Pretty sure there's a rule that a girl can eat as much as she wants on her birthday. Oh yeah, I'm another year older and pretty much as immature as ever. So here's to pretty dresses in loud patterns, shoes with bows/fruit/birds on them and to cake. Now hold my drink and watch this. Wheeeee!

P.S. Do you guys want a pattern drafting tutorial for this bodice?  Ask and you shall receive. :)