Friday, March 23, 2012

Colonial Day

It's been slow sewing lately.  I had 2 wadders recently, which is disheartening as always.  But my mojo is still flowing strong.  I've seen a lot of cute outfits I'd love to recreate on pinterest, and I also bought way too much fabric when Fashion Fabrics Club had their anniversary sale, so I'm ready to push on and keep sewing!

But of course I've had one success this month.  My Colonial Day dress!



My school does Colonial Day every year with the 5th graders, this being my first year joining them.  The students rotate through the different teachers and do different activities.  The kids danced the reel when they came to my station.

A kid took this picture, and I ended up looking like an amputee!  Note to self: don't put arms behind back!  But I'm including the picture anyways because you can see the whole look with my mob cap. :)

So on to the dress details.

I used McCalls 6139, mostly View A.  I added lace into the princess seaming and I added ribbon to the center bodice piece.  The bodice back was oddly drafted.  I'll put more details about this on pattern review.

This dress is by no means perfect, but I think it's fine for what it is.  Most of the seams aren't finished, I never ironed the skirt fabric, the zipper doesn't match, and the hem is totally wonky.  But I will wear this once a year at most, and I'll probably never wash it, so I wasn't motivated to be that careful or meticulous as I worked.

My non-matching zipper.  This is what happens when you're on a deadline and the local store doesn't have the perfect brown!

My departing thought: I used about 8 yards of fabric for this dress.  As I trimmed the 10 foot hem (!) I thought to myself: If I had to make this fabric myself, I'd be wearing a damn mini skirt!


All tuckered out.  Those kiddos wore me out!