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. :)

Now You'll Sleeeeeep.....then I'll steal your shoes

Hello all. I hope you have your shoe closets locked up tight, cause I'm about to knock you out with one heck of a dress. That's right, I was not speaking in hyperbole during the last #sewdollyclackett post about hemming a poppy dress. The "Painterly Poppy Dress" is real, and it's amazing. (I'm really getting into this whole dress naming thing. Long live Dolly Clackette!)

Are you feeling woozy yet? No?  Darn!  Frog say in a ready position with the shoe boxes, I have to soften them up with a few more photographs. I know, let's pander to the pocket lovers. Back side of pocket bag matches skirt, front pocket doesn't. Ooo La, la.

This is my #sewdollyclackett dress number two, a pattern mash up of the By Hand London Anna bodice with the Christine Haynes Emery skirt.  OMG, don't these two patterns looks fabulous together. I just want to squee all over myself and make a couple more. The credit for this idea goes to Jennifer Lauren and her amazing Christmas Dress.  Upon seeing it I drooled all over the keyboard and then plotted to make one of my own.

That must have made Ann, over at Gorgeous Fabrics, spider senses tingle.  She went and posted the perfect fabric for this type of dress, a giant floral boarder print. The print starts out as kind of like a multi-colored polka dot that gradually morphs into poppies and foliage. YES, YES, YES, take my money!

If you can believe it, this was my very first border print purchase. The plan was to make the Anna/Emery combo and put the largest flowers on both the hem and top of the bodice. However my Christmas cookie addled brain neglected to realize that I'd need extra yardage to do this. It just though, "Hey 2 yards of 60" fabric is plenty for a sleeveless dress."  Yeah dumb dumb, if it's an all over print.....but you only want to use the one edge!  Past Heather, buy another yard!!!  Past Heather never listens. She probably couldn't hear me with her head buried in a cookie tin anyway. It was time for Present day Heather to put on the thinking cap and came up with a solution.

After playing around with the pattern pieces, I could see that after cutting the skirt some of the large floral area would still be left. I could also cut the bodice upside down on the print, to get some of the smaller flowers in the shoulder area. Then a few large flowers could be cut out and appliqued to the bodice.  This crazy plan might just might work!

I cut the skirt and bodice pieces as planed and then used the lighter print area for all the pieces that wouldn't show.  Except for the one side of the pocket bag, they needed to blend nicely in with the skirt. See my brain was working on that day.

After completing the rest of the dress I turned my attention to harvesting some of those large flowers. To keep the edges from fraying, I block fused the fabric before cutting. Then for added insurance I put fray check on the backside edges.

When it came time to attach the flowers on inspiration struck.  I had some left over beads in my craft supplies, why not use those to hide the hand stitching?  Get out the needles, cause we've got some beading to do. Who am I doing all this hand work? Frog hand me some chocolate, I think these poppies must be making me a little high.

Tadaaaa, a pop of red color on top, balancing the bottom. Perfect!

After completing this dress I knew it needed some very special shoes......and none of my red shoes matched the orange red poppies. Oops, I once again bought a fabric that is not in my color scheme. At least the background isn't ivory this time.  Then Frog told me I was thinking about this all wrong.  A dress that necessitates a shoe purchase should be a plus. Thanks Froggie, you'll always be my number 1 enabler.

So we asked ourselves WWDCD - What would Dolly Clackett Do? Purchase Miss L Fire heels with the grapes on the toes?  Yes, yes, she would.

Oh sweet, I think those shoes finally made all of you pass out.  Frog, plan "Rudy Slipper" is a go! Start filling the shoe boxes.  Muhaa haaa! You didn't know I was the wicked witch did you? My color correcting and my new nose totally had you fooled.  "I'll get you my pretties and all your little shoes too." Then I'll instagram my new ensembles, I'm not a monster after all.

Pay no attention to the women on your sidewalk

Well Hello there, were you all concerned that I'd finally been buried alive in my fabric stash? It's really just a question of when it's going to happen. Maybe we should set up some Vegas odds so someone can make a little extra pattern money.

Instead of death by fabric avalanche, I was conspired against by my cover stitch machine. It decided to spontaneously break cause I forgot to engage the lower looper before stomping on the pedal.  As frog is my witness I've done this before without negative affects. Me thinks the machine just wanted some extra spa time away from my sweat shop. Alright you little diva, go have your vacation. I'll just sit here and stew about my secret PJ plans being thwarted....and sew out of season dresses.

Old man winter was all, "Oh you're sewing summer dresses? Enjoy some more snow then. Muhaaaa!!" Dude is a real piece of work.  While I'm willing to totter around the snow drifts in 3" heels, I have to draw the line at open toed sandals. You understand I'm sure, unless you're a Nihilist looking for a toe. 

This is me looking pretty incredulous about Walter's claims that he can get a toe, "There are ways."  Bitch Please, what's mine is mine.

Beside I'm rocking a whole Dorthy in the Wizard of Oz look here and I'm pretty sure these shoes are a one way ticket back to Kansas.  Maybe with a layover cause I skimped on the glitter.

In case you've forgotten this is Simplicity 2444, my first #sewdollyclackett dress. In true Dolly style I'm going to christen it with a snappy name.  May I present my "Gingham is for the birds" dress.  Eh, eh, see what I did there?  The birds look like gingham from far away? OK, I'll stop explaining my "cleverness" to you. Enjoy some pics in front of my neighbors fence. Traaa laa laaa there's no place like your fence.

I've gone down a Simplicity dress size so the pattern needed to be retraced and altered again. All the same pattern adjustments were made as before with the addition of a 1/4" hollow chest adjustment. This took care of the slight gaping of the neckline my original dress had. Who hollowed out my chest while I wasn't looking!

To pick up the bit of pink on the birds and add to my "learning new techniques" goal, I stole an idea from Gertie and put pipping in at the neckline and sleeve hems.  I just want you all to know that I suck at piping and made frog finish it for me.  He does tidy sewing work for baked goods.

The neckline has a facing but the sleeves are finished with the piping as a facing technique Gertie recently blogged.  

See someone catch stitched with white when they should have used pink.  Frog points a paw squarely at me. He will not have his good name sullied. He also wants to know where his Toto costume is.

My love for Simplicity 2444 has not waned.  The pleated skirt, the pockets, the fun darts on the bodice, it's full of win! I might find myself with a closet full of them with matching shoes....and OMG have I turned into our sew-a-long muse Dolly Clackett? Wait am I... Ginger? Frog says, "No you're just sort of brown."  Awww I wanted to be ginger, I've never been ginger! Though I seem to have acquired a Scarecrow and Tin Man.  Get out of my frame you two! At least the Lion knows how to work a camera.  

Well I must be hitting the old yellow brick road, there is a dress with giant poppies on it waiting for a hem.  I'll leave you with this shot that adds nothing except that I'm being slightly goofy and the caption amuses me. Come on froggie, we got a date with a wizard.

Witch is sending a flock of flying monkeys for my shoes? Has she never heard of Amazon Prime?