Sewing Catchup 3 - Using up Remnants

Number 3 of a sewing catchup posts.

When I was a teenager, I did a lot of sailing on lakes in PA.  And hubby and I owned a sailboat in the early years of our marriage. We soon tired of boat ownership and lake sailing. Now we let someone else do the sailing and boat maintenance and we enjoy the ride.  In Jan 2025, we went on a cruise that visited Bermuda, St. Lucia, Dominica, Antigua, St. Kitts, Iles des Saintes, and Martinique. It was on the Star Clipper, a five-masted sailing ship built as a cruise ship.

 The sails are used for parts of the trip.  When they raise the sails for departure from port, they play Conquest of Paradise by Vangelis, from the movie 1492, on the loudspeaker. It is very moving. For long distances, the engines are used. On this trip we had a sailing race between islands with a similar sister ship from the same company. It was very "sailing the high seas" exciting. 

 For the trip I made a cotton/linen dress featuring multiple drawstring channels for shaping. A style I was seeing a lot of at the time and wanted to try for myself. The pattern was the Jimena dress from @etta.sewingpatterns.

The dress required a lot of gathering. It was fun to wear. Definitely a beach/vacation type dress. Not a go to the grocery store dress.

Jimena Dress

 I had large remnants of the fabric used for the dress, a striped cotton/linen, from Mood Fabrics. To use them up I made the Malibu Shirt from https://www.etsy.com/shop/staystitchpatternco. 

I liked the way the front band is looped at the bottom to scrunch up the fabric at center front.

Malibu Shirt

Sew Catchup 2 - Size Matters

 

#2 in my catchup posts

Online fabric shopping.  It is becoming the norm these days what with physical fabric stores closing.  I like the convenience and variety of fabrics online stores offer. And my knowledge of fabric type and weight results in a good choice if this info is provided the fabric description.   But my biggest pet peeve is when the online store does not provide information about the scale of a print or a repeat. This happened recently but I made the best of it. I loved the fabric below. The print was unique. The navy and white is a favorite combination, and the fiber also a favorite - silk.  This was the only picture on the site and there was no info on the scale of the print in the description.  But come on, how big could the print be? I was picturing one of those small-scale prints where your sewing buddy gets close and says "Oh, those are faces, how cute."  No.  OMG. The faces were huge. Life size or perhaps bigger.  Sewing buddy has to step way back to see the whole image. 

 This fabric sat in my stash for a year.  Finally, I decided to use it with a sewing pattern that had seams lines that would "cut up" the print.  I pulled out the Sewing Workshop Siena & Cortona Shirts pattern, which I have made before. The Siena has some unique seaming that result in a boxy, loose-fitting top with short sleeves.

I changed the placket, from sewn on to cut on, so I could match the print in the center front. I also cropped the top by 3 inches.  I love how it turned out.  Unfortunately, the pattern is no longer available on The Sewing Workshop website. Perhaps they are digitizing and remarketing it as they have been doing to some of their other patterns recently. 

In your Face - Siena Top

Sew Catchup - Spring Dress

I have been a lazy blogger  this year. I realize blogs aren't as popular/read as they once were. But this is my way of documenting my sewing for myself. So this is the first of several posts to catch up on garment sewn earlier this year.

In April, my local American Sewing Guild chapter had a tea party inspired event. We were encouraged to wear our party hats and fascinators.  I don't wear hats/fascinators. I like dresses though.  For some unexplained reason, all the spring dresses in my closet had shrunk. So I made a new one.  

Knipmode 2404-10 dress.  The fabric was a viscose print from Fabric Mart Fabrics. The pattern is available as a PDF download from the Knipmode  website. Instructions are in Dutch and can be translated with Google Translate 

Knipmode 2404-10

 The tie on the right hand side is cut as one with the dress front and when seamed, forms the gathering at the side waist. The dress was easy to sew except that the edge of the bottom half of the front pattern piece (D,E area in drawing below) was on the bias and stretched out a bit. It had to be eased into the front button band. And I think, because of this, the dress hem droops a bit on that side.  Something nobody but me would notice. The left front is one piece, cut on the straight of grain, with a waist tie inserted in the side seam.

Knipmode 2404-10 right front pattern 

 A couple weeks later I saw a Burda dress  (10 2024 107) with similar front waist styling, but the RHS front pattern was drafted with a waist seam and sewn on tie.  This design kept the edges, where the button band is sewn, on the straight of grain, and required less fabric. I found the comparison of the two dresses interesting.

Burda 10 2024 107  right front pattern

I enjoyed wearing the dress to the ASG event and out to some family birthday dinners  at fancy restaurants. The waist with the tie in front and elastic in back is very forgiving.

KnipMode 2024 04 #10