Summer Shirtdress

I needed a break from hand sewing on my jacket. As I was browsing through the August issues of the foreign sewing magazines that I subscribe to, this dress caught my eye. I thought the cross hatched tucks on the skirt was interesting and the rest of the dress was a style that works well on my body type.

The pattern is from the August 2010 issue of a Russian sewing magazine Шитье и крой which translates to Sewing and Cut.

The translated description of the magazine from the distributor's website: “Not simply a sewing magazine with patterns, it helps readers create their own fashionable look and accessories. Featuring the latest fashion from the catwalks of the world, it is possible to wear the same fashions as actresses using our convenient patterns and clear instructions. This magazine also presents the work of Russian fashion designers. Each issue contains 70 original patterns for woman. Target audience – women of 16-35 years. ”

Well I am definitely not in the magazine's age demographic, but I thought with the addition of about 10 inches to the length of the skirt, it was wearable by someone my age.

I recently figured out how to translate scans of the foreign language picture captions and sewing instructions into English. Even those written in Russian Cyrillic characters. First step is to use free online OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software to extract text from an image scan (JPG, GIF, TIFF BMP or PDF) of the sections of text on the magazine pages. Then copy/past the text into free translation software which recognizes Cyrillic characters. Pretty slick. When school starts for my sons this fall, I plan to use the OCR to convert the 15 or so printed forms I have to fill out for each son, into electronic word documents that can be updated every year. Also the blasted information forms that my dentist insists be filled out every year from scratch for every member of the family. But I am getting off track.

The pattern instructions suggest gabardine as the fabric. I used a cross woven linen look fabric for the dress and Bemberg rayon for the lining. I omitted the side seam pocket. I used an invisible zipper in the side seam. The dress pattern is printed in one size - 48, which corresponded with my measurements. The only pattern modifications I did were those I do for any commercial pattern; increasing the back length and adding back shoulder seam darts for shaping. I love this color blue accented either red or saddle brown. And it will be a good dress to wear this fall.

Here is a picture of me and Miss Ashley in front of the fall blooming clematis that is taking over my deck. It smells wonderful. We are using the wireless remote for the new camera to take pictures of ourselves. Miss Ashley didn't much like the camera staring at her from the other side of the deck, making funny clicking noises.