Kendrick’s new album came out in the middle of me making a dress and was on repeat long enough to finish that project and complete an entirely new dress. The album is called, as you can probably gather, To Pimp A Butterfly. If I am being honest, I wanted to call the first dress my “This. Dick. Ain’t. Free!” Muumuu and my second one the “Every N*gga Is A Star” Maxi, but I was afraid it would alienate my already barely existent readership, so I made what feels like a pretty decent compromise.
The first dress, here on out referred to as the muumuu, is from a German indie designer company called Schnittchen. When the pattern arrived, I opened it up to find a large sheet of pattern pieces and one page of instructions written only in German. FYI I don’t read or speak German. After tooling around on their site, I found that they provide an online version of their instructions written in English, which was great. And they were fine until it was time to construct the sleeves. The dress pattern and design are very simple and could probably be put together without step-by-step instructions, but the sleeve construction is unique (very pretty, but not as straight forward as set-in sleeves), and without thorough details or pictures to go off of (no line drawings or photos accompany the instructions), I was stumped for about 10 minutes trying to figure it out. There was a sew-along posted for this dress (which is called Hannah, by the way), but it was all in German, too. Fortunately there were pictures included, so I just stared at them until it started to make sense to me.
It took, like, 15 additional minutes. But it was cool cause Kendrick was in the background. The most confusing part of the sleeve is that there are two pattern pieces for the same thing (piece number 5, referred to as the “ruffle”). One pattern piece says “uncreased” and the other doesn’t; both pieces are of very similar (though not exact) shapes, but printed out on the paper in opposite directions. I still can’t figure out which one I was supposed to use or in what important way they were different from one another, so I just kind of eenie-meenie-miny-moed it, chose one, put the sleeve’s three pieces together and figured out how they should be attached to the dress. Pretty sure I did it the right way cause they ended up looking great, and all the edges and notches met and hit at the right places. But I definitely think they should have included a clearer set of instructions for the sleeves, or at least included some visual explanation for how the pieces should go together in the instructions.
Claire and I took a trip to the Huntington gardens today (it was my first time and her third) and it was so beautiful! I was hoping we could see some of Octavia Butler’s papers on display at the library, but they only bring them out of the archives when they are part of an exhibit, so instead we just wandered the grounds and took pics in the succulent garden (which is phenomenal, btw).
This fabric is a soft, medium weight cotton with different designs woven and stitched onto it- it is described as a native/ethnic cloth at Michael Levine’s, and I recognize the motif as such, but I am curious if there is an actual name for this type of fabric, and if so, what it is (pardon my ignorance!) Anyways, this dress, because it is so free flowing and not-constricting at all, is a really nice design for LA spring, or as I like to call it, “Summer Part 1” (Summer Part 2 starts in May). Its the kind of dress that can be dressed up or down cause it looks good with flats as well as casual heels- in these pics I am wearing my braided leather clogs- not good for walking around the gardens for any length of time, but perfect for a photoshoot.
I shortened the length of this dress considerably because there is so much material in the muumuu and I was afraid that making it knee length would look too overwhelming on my frame. This dress has no zipper and slips on over your head, so the neck hole is fairly wide to accommodate a noggin. Because of this, the neck sits a little wider on the collarbone/neck than I am used to, but I can live with it (and adjust it just a bit if I ever make this again, which I think I will). In general I am happy with this make, and I am thinking of making it in a nice chambray so that I don’t wear this one out too much- it’s the perfect house-dress-cum-grocery-store-run-cum-let’s-go-to-the-mall-for-fun garment and it’s gotten plenty of use so far.
The second dress I made has been a bit of a revelation. It is McCalls pattern 7121 and not something I would normally buy. I tend to avoid most big company patterns because I think the sizing and fit is usually off on me, plus I like the idea of supporting indie pattern designers. But last week I actually took the time to sit down and look through the books at JoAnn’s with Claire while we searched for an outfit to make her for a wedding we are going to next month, and I was surprised to find myself bookmarking tons of patterns that I wanted to add to my collection. This maxi dress pattern caught my eye because it is designed for knits, and thanks to The Colette Guide To Sewing Knits book which came out last year, sewing with this fabric type is pretty much my new favorite thing. Knit garments just sew up SO quickly, and they are so versatile and wearable for year-round sunny LA weather. Also, after discovering the girlcharlee website, I have been inspired by a seemingly endless array of beautiful knit fabric for purchase. The fabric that I made this maxi out of was not purchased at girlcharlee, though- it’s a deep steel colored knit crepe that I bought online at fabric.com for another pattern I had planned to make (and opted out of). This fabric is kind of unreal. Against your skin it feels really fancy and chic, but it doesn’t appear to be precious at all- I pre-washed it in my machine and dried it in the dryer, and it came out feeling exactly the same without any pilling or dullness. One side is smooth and matte while the other side has the identifying crepe texture with a bit of shine while still feeling very soft and silky. This dress was meant to be nice and casual, but after I sewed it up in this fabric, it felt really decadent and much more fancy than I was anticipating- I would absolutely make this dress out of this fabric again and make it long enough to wear with heels- it could translate to evening-wear like a dream. The way it moves around your body when you walk is fantastic- it holds its shape without looking stiff, and sewing it was lovely- very easy to work with, it didn’t stretch out at the hems while I sewed double lines of stitching, and it has great recovery.
I like the design of this pattern, but the fabric is the real MVP here. After sewing it up, I learned that the bodice is drafted with no negative ease whatsoever, so it just kind of sat on top of me, puckering in weird places as opposed to hugging my curves the way that most knit fabric patterns are designed to do. It was an easy fix, though- I just re-serged my front seam about 2 inches in, and when I tried it on again, it was perfect- it looked like it was painted on without looking too tight or like I was busting out of it. I split the 2 inch difference on my front and back pattern pieces so that the decrease was shared between the two when I made this again, but for this dress, I didn’t think the difference was that big of a deal. I love the racer-back style of this bodice a lot, cause it works so well with my tattoos and is just a flattering look in general. 
I already have the fabric to make this again, and I am going to use the altered bodice pieces but cut out a short circle skirt for the bottom instead. I might decrease the allowances on the skirt pieces so that they match up perfectly with the new bodice pieces, but as it is, the skirt fits perfectly- not too tight, barely skimming across my hips and butt. The bodice and skirt are sewn together to create a channel for a narrow strip of elastic to be inserted, and that gives the dress just enough stretch at the waist to pull on over your torso but not so much that the waist looks gathered and has a lot of excess material. It’s one of my favorite things about this dress- the silhouette is so sleek and makes me look (relatively) long and tall. I sewed a very simple, quick belt to go with this dress out of the same material cause I don’t like the slight gathers at the waist on it’s own and I didn’t have a belt that went well with this look. I like it the fabric belt- I think it makes it look a bit more casual. I’ll try to share the replica I make of this dress in the new (much more playful) fabric I got from girlcharlee…til then, here are a couple of my favorite pictures that Claire took at the gardens…!
The above picture is from the bonsai exhibit that was on display, and the trees were breathtakingly beautiful, but it was this unexpected glimpse at the tiniest of sprouts growing up from the moss that I loved the most.
BONSAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!
And this one is awesome just because it shows that nature knows how to throw in a pop of color in the most perfect amount. Style inspiration in the purest form!
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