Finished the Growth ReMake, Time to Take It Easy.

Good Morning!

This is a wild iris I saw along the trail at Olalla

Dunkin and I are back to walking the trails by Olalla. We have hit the magic interlude where the forests are re-opened after being closed due to Covid 19 but they are not yet closed again because of fire season. Whoo-hooo! I don’t know about the rest of you , but I’ve put on a little poundage during this stay-at-home season. Walking is EX-ACTLY what I need.

TAH DAH–It’s finished!!! The “Making The Cut” inspired Remake.

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I am not going to lie. I am THRILLED with how this turned out. I have no idea where I will wear it. But why get bogged down in details????

The loop-de-loop sweater is finished! And what a lot of something it is!!! I dare say, I have out-done myself in outlandishness with this. Couldn’t be more pleased. What I was aiming for was to combine the structure of the loops with a bunch of flow on the bottom. I had this cool Queen-Bee embroidered mesh from Telio fabrics that I was saving for just the right occasion. I think this was that occasion!! See the ruching around the top of the mesh? Sewing Sister is the expert of that!

I also added a zipper to the sweater because of the show, “Making the Cut”. On the last post, I said I was inspired for this remake by an episode where the designers, Jonny and Megan, made amazing jackets with loops. At one point, in this episode, Megan thought they needed to add a zipper to a jacket. Jonny said, “But I don’t want to be known as ‘The Zipper Guy'”. and the left it out. I went ahead and added the zipper. An exposed zipper, no less.

I’m going to flat-out brag………The zipper went in without a lot of fuss or muss. You know, it was just a few weeks ago that the Vogue 1635 zipper-sleeved sweater inaugurated my use of zippers. And I still don’t have a zipper foot! I meant to order one, but it slipped away from me. As soon as I do though…….. I’ll be known as “The Zipper Girl”!

Let’s take one last look at that sweet, sweet zipper before we move on….

Making an Easy Fun Garment (ESG) with Lotta Jansdotter

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  This is the book….

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  This is the dress……

I am fin-ally getting around to making a garment out of one of the (many!) sewing books I have!!!

Does any one else do this? I buy a sewing book specifically because it has patterns included. I think of all the outfits I can sew, all the money I will save NOT buying more patterns (hah!!!) and then…….I never use a single pattern out of the book. Please tell me it’s not just me.

Such was the case with this book by Lotta Jansdotter. And it is a shame. It is a great book. Fun and inspirational. I think I bought it 4 years ago. I loved the prints, the clothes, the ideas. Everything. So why did it sit on my shelf lonely and neglected? I’m not sure. It might be that I was kind of intimidated by the tracing you have to do to find your pattern. In a book like this they put all of the patterns on top of each other on a couple of pages. You have to go through the maze of lines, find the lines for your pattern, and trace them onto a big sheet of paper (I used white freezer paper because it is easy to find at the grocery store). I think, 4 years ago, I looked at the page with all of the lines and went “Whoa Nelly!” And stopped.

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  This is what you start with…..

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  If all goes well, this is what you end up with.

But now we have the Sewingjourney blog and this seemed like the perfect project to write about. I have been wanting to make the Eseme dress and I even found a black plaid that matched the picture perfectly. So I got out my pen; laid it all out on the floor and channeled my paper doll days. Trace and cut, trace and cut. Except that the front had a cap sleeve and was tunic length, while the back had no sleeve and was dress length, it turned out perfect!!!

As I thought about cutting the fabric I thought about how teeny-tiny Lotta Jansdotter is and how I am more hmmmmmm…….curvaceous. I am not sure that the up and down plaid design was going to do me any favors. Then I thought—BIAS! What if I cut the plaid on the bias and made the print run diagonal? It would make me look a lot less like an ottoman and be kind of fun. I’ve never made a dress on the bias before and what you’ve never done you don’t know you can’t do. Right?????

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  I started like this…..

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  But switched to this!

See how we went from the square, squat plaid to the totally dreamy diagonal. Isn’t sewing the best!!!

I scooted the fabric around so it was at a 45 degree angle. Then I used the points of the plaids to help me keep track of where the straight lines should run. It worked out pretty slick. I also found a Threads article about cutting and sewing on the bias (written by Marcy Tilton, no less!!) and I referred to it frequently as I went along.

I’ll confess, I chickened out on the sleeves. The dress was supposed to have 3/4 length sleeves but I wasn’t sure I could make the sleeve do what it was supposed to do with a bias cut, so I decided to put some lace around the arm hole and wear it as a sun dress. Wait until you see what I did with the lace!!!!!

The pattern called for arm and neck facings but Marcy recommended using bias bindings so that is what I did. And, since we learned how to make bias tape a couple of weeks ago, I made the bias tape out of my dress fabric. Cool, huh!!!

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  Here’s the bias tape being made……

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  Here is the tape attached to the neckline~. Tah Dah!!!

The trick with bias tape is to remember to cut it on the bias. It was super easy. I used the checks as my reference points!

When it came time to hem the dress. I thought I was going to use some sweet little demure eyelet lace around the hem and sleeves. That would have looked nice, huh?? B-u-u-u-t, as I was rummaging around for some lace I found a section of a white vintage petticoat. It was awesome!! All frothy and frilly, like the top of a milkshake. And then I found another section of lace that matched the petticoat AND was just enough to fit the sleeves. So demure went out the window and Petticoat-Junction-milk-shake took it’s place. Here is what I ended up with………….

Plaids and froth, I like the combination!!!

Just putting this dress on is a whole lot of fun!!! And even though it is an EFG (Easy Fun Garment) it allowed me to learn a new skill (cutting on the bias) and practice a recent skill (making bias tape). It was the perfect follow up to the more challenging things we have worked on! I have in my mind a few more versions for this dress. Let’s see what happens.

Time to Say “Goodbye!”

Okay everyone, we are out of time and room. Man, it’s been nice spending time with you!! I love writing Sewingjourney and I am thrilled that you join me. Take care. I love you. Have a great week and I will talk to you soon!