Merry, Merry, Pick A Cherry

I found this great cherry-print fabric at the Mill End Store a few weeks ago and knew right away that it would made a perfect summer shirt dress.

To be honest, I'm not really sure what to say about this dress.  Because I haven't made many button-down shirts or anything with princess seams in years upon years, I followed the instructions to the letter.  At least, I think I did.  For the most part, I found them quite good, but then this is pretty basic construction.  I used my new serger  to finish the facings (and attach the skirt) rather than folding them under, but I think that's the only thing I did differently. 

I would have liked a little more guidance on the collar band because I didn't realize it would need as much easing as it did, and my easing needs work.  I'm sure there are a couple of places where the fabric got caught, but since it's under the collar, I'm not worrying about it too much. 

 It looks all sad and shapeless on the hanger.

I shortened the skirt by six inches and took a half inch off the bottom of the collar as well.  If you look at the product shot, the collar really does look like something that Tony Manero would have worn to win a dance competition at 2001 Odyssey (that's my roundabout way of saying that the collar looks like it came straight out of 1977).  And I love the buttons.  I had to go to three different fabric stores to get enough (the pattern calls for 11).  The remind me of cherry candy, and when the light hits them correctly, they sparkle.

Please ignore the unsnipped threads.

I think the dress is cute.  That's not damning with faint praise because I loves me a shirt dress, and I'll wear this often once the weather gets going.  But it's not perfect stylewise.  I think I would like something with a fuller skirt and maybe not with buttons all the way down.  I'm going to take a look at some vintage patterns.  That being said, I may make another view of this dress:  the one with the round neck and cap sleeves.

I'm thrilled that my little, red Mary-Janes go with this so well.  I got these shoes for $12.99 at Payless Shoe Source about three years ago, and they are the best shoes ever.  I've tried to replace them with something "better" and haven't been able to find anything I like half as much.

I'm not sure what I'm working on next.  I'm currently doing pattern alterations for several things including a vintage skirt pattern and two blouses.  I also need to look through my dress patterns because I've recently picked up some really pretty floral lawn.  But since the serger is all set up with white thread, I might do a couple of cotton jersey tops.  And then I have to hit the Simplicity sale at Joann's.  I have some lightweight denim, and it's calling for this pattern.

Let's Play A Guessing Game

The white Four Runner?  My boss's car.  The view?  Out the office window.  The question?  How much work do you think got done in my office today?

All kidding aside, no one was hurt.  The two cars the Four Runner landed on drove out under their own power.  Word is still out on the Four Runner.

The Easter Beagle Will Never Let You Down

Okay, the title has very little to do with the actual post.  Other than Easter.  As usually happens around the holidays, Mr. flyskim and I trek out to the middle-of-nowhere Hillsboro to spend the day with his cousin M, M's wife, R, their adult children, sister-in-law V and her husband, G-man.  I was in charge of desserts, and even though we had been warned that there were only going to be 11-12 people there, Mr. flyskim suggested that I make two different items.  Far be it from me to turn down an extra baking opportunity.  I don't get to do it anywhere near often enough because Mr. flyskim doesn't eat sweets, and I'm trying to avoid gaining weight as I head into my mid-forties.  So, I started with my fallback chocolate cake with standard, sugar box icing.  This recipe has never failed me, and if you ask me to bring a cake somewhere, it's probably going to be this one.  I'm not much of a cake decorator, so I usually just dye the icing and stick things on top.  If I'm lucky, it'll actually look like something.  As I noted in my last post, Mr. flyskim insisted that we put Peeps on the cake, so I colored the icing green and put the Peeps bunnies out in the middle of the Easter egg field. 

If it had been up to me, this would have had an Easter bunny harvesting a giant carrot and candy flowers.

My second dessert was a Raspberry Streusel Tart from the Joy of Cooking.  I've only made one real pie crust, and it turned out okay, but I didn't want to risk it not turning out, so I did then next logical thing.  I made something I had never even tried before.  I used a press-in shortbread crust, and I think my tart pan was a little too big because I had some issues covering the whole thing, and it cooked in under 15 minutes (recommended time was 18-22 minutes) in my oven where baked goods regularly need the maximum time for a recipe plus some.  I was glad I decided to check it early, because I got it out before it started to burn.

Isn't it pretty?  The shiny comes from an egg wash to seal the pastry from the wet filling.

I'm glad I used a sweet crust, because it was a nice contrast to the tart raspberries.  The recipe wisely does not call for a lot of sugar in the filling.  The streusel was made with flour, brown sugar, crushed walnuts (Mr. flyskim's people are walnut farmers in the California central valley, so we always have a good supply on hand) and cinnamon. 

 

I'm not 100% certain that I cooked this long enough.  I'm not exactly sure whether the streusel is supposed to be crispy, crunchy or cake-like. It doesn't matter much because it was yummy.  Here are my creations waiting to be hacked into.

 Aren't they pretty?

Since I'd way over-baked, and Mr. flyskim was wrong for once about his cousin inviting every neighbor off the mountain to dinner, my co-workers had to do the dirty work of polishing these off for me yesterday.

Next up on the sewing table:  New Look 6587, view A.  I'm using this great cherry-print stretch cotton and the cutest little red buttons.  I have the bodice and the skirt put together separately.  The next step is to put the two together, add the collar and sleeves and make button holes.  If I'm focused, I might be able to finish by this weekend.

A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman . . .

. . . but loose enough to show you're a lady. - Edith Head

I think I've managed to accomplish this with the sheath dress from McCalls 5818. 

(Yes, I was geeky enough to bring my camera to work specifically so I could take a picture of myself in the full-length mirror in the bathroom.  What?  There's decent light, and we don't have a full-length mirror at home.  The wrinkling in the middle of the dress is due to the wonky way I was standing to actually get myself fully in the picture.  On an unrelated note, I was having a fantastic hair day.)

Dress as still life.

I love this dress.  I love the pleating at the neckline and have wanted a dress with this detail for ages (particularly after a failed attempt at McCalls 5466; stupid bias-cut skirt).  I love that there are no side bust darts, so there is one less opportunity for darts that stick out.  I love that there were only two pattern pieces.  I did a full bust adjustment and distributed the additional fullness to the neckline darts.  I also graded up in the hips and thighs probably one full size.  The pattern instructs you to use a regular zipper, but I had just received my new invisible zipper foot, so I had to put in an invisible zipper to justify the purchase.  It also gave me the option of machine stitching the lining to the zipper.

There is supposed to be a slit at the bottom of the skirt, but because this hits me just above the knee, it wasn't necessary (and I completely forgot about it because I ditched the instructions).

My only real beef is with the instructions.  Other than referencing them to make sure I was making the pleats at that neckline properly, I didn't really use them because I wanted to try the method for lining a dress outlined here (which was fantastic and gave a great result after I enlarged the shoulders so that I could bring the front pieces through after sewing) and, seriously, two pattern pieces, three seams, a zipper and a hem.  Even I can put those together without instructions.  But this is a Palmer/Pletsch pattern.  One of the bonuses of these patterns is that there are supposed to be some instructions to help with fitting, and while the instructions did walk you through all of the most common adjustments (full bust, broad back, forward shoulder), they used the jacket pattern as the example.  This does make sense because the jacket is the most complicated piece in the wardrobe, but it leaves you flying blind for the dress.  Well, not blind exactly, because there are the handy alteration lines on the dress pattern, but they address the full bust adjustment by creating a side bust dart which turns this into a slightly different dress than the one on the pattern envelope (also, see above re: loving no side bust dart).  The pattern does not take the next step and explain how to take the fullness from that side bust dart and rotate it into the neckline pleats.  If I hadn't altered this pattern in the Fit For Real People class, I would have had no clue.

I used a polyester suiting and lining for this.  I know, the evil synthetic fabric.  But it has a nice feel and drape to it with a little bit of stretch, and now I have a work-appropriate dress that I can throw into both the washer and the dryer.  Additional bonus?  The hanger shot above was taken after the dress has spent the night (okay, two) wadded folded up in my gym bag.  Minimal wrinkling, which is important when you plan to wear a sheath dress while sitting at a desk all day.

All in all, I am really pleased with the result.  The dress is classic with an interesting enough detail to keep it from being boring, and I got a lot of compliments at work the day I wore it.

For those who celebrate Easter, have a great holiday.  I'm off now to frost the cake Mr. flyskim and I are bringing to his cousin's house.  Just a basic chocolate cake from this recipe.  Easy as anything and really tasty.  It's the same recipe I used for this cake when a co-worker moved to Austria so that his wife could pursue a job opportunity.

That's even a Lufthansa plane (he's a pilot; it makes sense).

I use the frosting recipe from the back of the powdered sugar box, and we're going to color it green and decorate it with a bunch of Peeps rabbits.  That would be Mr. flyskim's contribution to this venture.  I wanted to make the cake look like a meadow with candy flowers and an Easter Bunny.  But noooooo.  He thinks Peeps will be funny.  I'll post pictures later.