Treating myself to pockets, part one

Helloooooooo! Didja miss me? I have missed you! And all of this bloggy stuff. How have I stayed away for four months?!  I have tried to come back a few times. I started some new posts, but I never finished them. It turns out the things I wanted to write about were just too ambitious, and required research, and photography, and just more effort than I was up for. I’ll get back to those posts eventually, when I am in the mood to do the work. For now, though, how about something frivolous and lovely? How about a little sewing show-and-tell?

The Orange Gingham Dress Shirt

I have wanted an orange gingham shirt for a long time, so when I got my hands on some fabric, it was enough motivation to get the sewing machine back out. Last summer I was all about the multi-length sheath pattern, and I’m still loving everything I made with it. I will probably never sew anything else again. I will just keep tweaking that pattern forever and ever 😀

Anyway, I laid the pattern on the fabric and discovered that I had enough fabric to make the dress length. So, I figured, why not? And I went for it.

But it was not to be. I really like orange gingham, but apparently I don’t like it a whole dress amount. I like it a shirt amount. So, I cut off the bottom ten inches, and re-hemmed it, and voila: the shirt I originally wanted before detouring into dress-making!

Full disclosure: this shirt is soooooo tight across the chest. When I first put it on, I could barely inhale. I took apart the side seams and re-sewed it to give myself another precious half an inch. An inch would have been better, but my seam allowance just wasn’t large enough for that. I can live with it like this, but unfortunately, after I threw it in the wash, one of my side seams came undone. Guess I got too close to the edge. Technically, I could still wear it with a sweater…

I probably won’t, though, since it’s still uncomfortably tight. I’ve dumped it into my mending pile. Maybe I’ll add some subtle side panels or something to give myself some extra room, if I can figure out how to do it in a way that doesn’t look bad. I need some distance from it first.

The Bold Floral Dress

Let’s look at something that gave me more success, shall we? After making the gingham shirt that started out as a dress, I realized that I actually kind of wanted a dress.  That was a surprise to me, given my recent summer wardrobe of mostly long pants. I dug through my fabrics from last summer to see if I had any leftovers with enough yardage. Turns out, I did! So, I cut up my favorite blue floral and made a dress that I was almost quite happy with. But it needed pockets.

I’ve never actually added pockets to a dress before. (Well, I’ve done patch pockets on the front of a couple of dresses, but that’s not what I wanted this time.) So I watched a YouTube video to get the hang of how to do it, and then I ripped open my side seams and sewed a couple of pockets in there!

They are not perfect pockets. There’s some bunching in the corners of the openings, and I made those openings a tiny bit smaller than I should have, but hey! They are functioning pockets! And that is super cool. Someplace to keep my keys. Or a few tiny treasures. Or, more importantly, my hands. I like having pockets to put my hands into.

I’m likely to always wear this with comfy sandals, but I love that I can dress it up with heels if I want to.

So, that’s all the sewing I did this past weekend, and I’m half happy with my results 🙂 I’ve actually got more in the works, because sewing is like potato chips for me. If I’ve made something I like, I can’t resist going back for more. I have cut out another shirt and another dress with pockets, but I haven’t sewn them up yet. When I do, I’ll be back with part two. And I promise I won’t disappear for four months before that happens 🙂

On another note, I’m looking for a memoir to read at the beach later this month. I generally like real, true stories from famous people.  Bonus points if they’re funny people. Not really interested in fiction. Any suggestions?