2017 Flashback - Addicted to Plaid

Well lookie here, my camera card still has more unblogged garments on it. There's also 3 different garments that haven't been photographed at all, but now I'm playing chicken with the summer sun. If I could take blog photos successfully in the rain I'd do it. Gotta keep that wet set from falling out before wash day. Momma don't have 2 hours to do that more than once a week.

Anyway I'm going to finally talk about one of my favorite makes of last year that somehow I've mostly kept under wraps until now.  This dress is the complete opposite of the poor Dragnor that didn't really work out.  Several of you mentioned in the comments of that blog post that I look best with high contrast colors and here's proof of that.  The pictures for this dress were taken the same day as the Dragnor pics. All I did was change my hair style and a few accessories.

The pattern here is Hollywood 1857, (pictured below).  I bought it in a lot of 4 patterns and thought this one contained both a romper and shirtdress. When it arrived it turned out to be a romper with an additional skirt you could put over the romper. Oops, probably should have read some of the seller's description about the product.  Sometimes I get excited and bid based solely on the pattern illustration and bust size.

I'm not anti romper on other people, but my romping days are done......if they ever existed. I'll keep my utilitarian english/german/irish/* insert other pale european based people here* legs covered thank you very much.  But about that shirt dress now, couldn't one create one with some minor pattern hacking?  Time to get out the tissue and make it work. Spoiler, hardly any work was required.

The original pattern drafter put the princess line seams in exactly the same location on the romper and the skirt. They also marked the natural waistline on the romper and drafted the skirt to sit there. All I had to do was draw a line across the waist of the various romper pieces and add seam allowance. Didn't have to do anything to the skirt other than omit the waistband. How easy is that!  Thank you past pattern drafter, you did fine work.

Since that part was easy I decided to complicate matters and make this design up in plaid.  Congrats Heather, you now have to match plaids across princess line seams and a waist seam. Oh and you picked a plaid that's not symmetrical.  I'm sure that won't come back and bite you in the ass.  Spoiler, it did.

Decision 1 - Where did I want the bright red plaid to go?  In the lower corner or the upper corner? (Went with lower corner as you can see.)

Decision 2 - Was I going to mirror the plaid across the front seam? I probably would have if the back had a center seam. Since it didn't all the plaid was cut in the same direction.

Decision 3 - How much of an adult beverage should you drink before cutting plaids?  Just kidding, though I wish that alcohol could be blamed for my cutting screw up.

Somewhere during the cutting marathon I flipped the direction of the fabric and cut several pieces with the red plaid block in the upper corner.  (Probably during a snack break......hey it takes a long time to match plaid across 8 pieces.) The mistake was caught before I'd finished cutting everything but there wasn't enough fabric to fix it.  I emailed Linda in a panic and asked if we still had any of this fabric at work cause I'd made a garment ending boo boo. She emailed back that someone had placed an order for this fabric over the weekend but she thought there was a yard left. The sewing goddess was with me because there was 1.5 yards after cutting that order. It was just enough fabric to cut new pieces with the correct plaid match and the garment was saved! Thank god, how else would I have gotten my "blue steel" on otherwise.

Pattern
Hollywood 1857 - slightly modified into a shirtdress.

Fabrics used
Dress weight cotton plaid from Emmaonesock (Sorry it's long gone.)

Pattern changes/alterations
1. 1/2" Forward shoulder adjustment.
2. 1/4" Sway back adjustment.
3. 1/2" Extra ease added to waist and hips.
4. Waist seam added to create shirt dress.
5. Button placement slightly changed.

Confessions/Advice
Confessions
 - I have fitting problems with square necklines that don't happen with other neckline shapes. Pretty sure it has to do with my hollow chest and low bust point. The annoying part is one fix doesn't seem to work on every square neckline.  On this dress it's a little too wide in the middle portion and will collapse in on itself.  One of these days I'll unpick my sewn down facings and take in the princess line seam above the bust. Until then I'm just going to wear it as is and be slightly irked about the neckline.

- Is sewing plaid addictive and do I have a problem? All signs point to yes.

Husband Comment
"It's plaid and similar to other things you wear."- the most Pennsylvania Dutch comment to date
Bonus son comment - "I would never wear plaid but you look good in it."

My Final Thoughts
I should fix the neckline fitting issue and make more of these. You can fit a whole smart phone/ipod/tape measure in those pockets. All at once! Also where can I get more summery plaids? Feed my addiction people. A girl has needs.   On that note I'll leave you with this picture of me being weird.  Why am I doing this? No idea. Feel free to speculate.