Greetings from the inside of a laundry basket! That’s kind of how I feel reviewing these pictures. Hence the play on words in the title, do you get it? Because the dress has flowers and the dress looks bunched up? Eh. Heh. Heh. It’s not that funny, I guess. The lighting was not kind to this dress at all, is what I’m trying to say.
It’s fine, I still love it. This dress is the result of several months worth of sleeve testing. I can’t tell you how many sleeves I made, but the fabric bin is full of test runs. This dress was also kind of a test run in that I didn’t love this fabric when it came to me, it was kind of paler than I expected and as my mother helpfully adds, the colour “washes me out”. And the wrinkles are, I guess, what you get for using bedsheet fabric. It does feel really lovely to wear though, because the fabric was very soft.
I’ve always loved mixing fabrics and this dress is no exception, so what better fabric to use than a bedsheet? What I love about sheets the most is that they usually have their coordinating fabrics built right in. There’ll be an upper side and an underside of coordinating designs and I think there are entirely too few patterns that allow you to play on coordinating fabrics. So we make our own!
You’ll notice the design is very similar to a purple dress I put together earlier this year. While the style lines are the same, I reworked my sloper a little to allow for sleeves. That was a really rude shock to me actually, the fact that my original sloper I developed was a poor one for sleeves. I had to increase the upper back length a little bit to allow for a wider range of motion with sleeves inserted, and now, I have a pretty decent reach in all directions when wearing this dress. I also added a wee bit of ease throughout the body as well so I can wear blouses underneath it for Winter. It may look rumpled, but I’m pretty happy how the fit turned out.
Definitely redoing that hem though. I had the tension turned too high up when I was using the blind hem attachment on my vintage Singer which was a disaster, not to mention the fact that I feel like I definitely need some more length on this dress to cover the petticoat properly.
Oh well. Here’s a pocket to distract you. I love having a little peek of contrast fabric on the front side of my pocket. I am not the kind to have really visible contrasting pocket linings, I think they can look a bit tacky if executed poorly, but using the contrast on the side of the pocket that rarely ever gets seen makes me feel a little bit fancy, even if I’m the only person who knows it’s there (well, and now you too, dear reader).
That’s enough about the dress. An exciting thing I wanted to talk about was that I just started livestreaming my sewing on Twitch! So now, twice a week, you’ll be able to tune into my channel and watch me working on projects. I’ve been having an awful time keeping motivated, so I figure the only thing that can really whip me into shape is letting down a dozen or so people who look forward to watching me every week.
You know you’re fighting a losing battle when you’re trying to enlist external sources of help for your various mental shortcomings. It’s okay though. For the meantime, it’s actually working pretty well! I have kept to my strict schedule and this entire dress was sewn within three streams. Something that would normally take me months of hesitation and procrastination took me little less than a week, it’s a miracle! Now mind you, I’m just starting out, so I’m having my fair share of technical issues (like walking around in not a lot of clothing because I’ve forgotten to turn off the stream, or dropping the camera, or my microphone invariably quitting on me partways through a stream, etc.), but I am confident I will get them sorted and it will be much less painful to watch.
Regardless, I’m not really into the streaming aspect for money or fame. Sewing is actually a really lonely and isolating hobby, and after my self-imposed Instagram cooldown (meaning I only go on it when I have things to share or comments to reply to and I have 5 minutes to do my business and get out), streaming has enabled me to connect with a wider community, sewing and otherwise. Sometimes people tell me that they’re working on their own projects while they listen to me and chat every now and again, which is very cool. Talking to people in real-time around the world is definitely the highlight of my streams, despite the technical issues.
So you’ll be seeing me around quite a lot on that platform! I recommend you subscribe if you want to watch how I sew my clothes. I often discuss hacks, tips, and techniques while I sew, and occasionally ask for feedback on design aspects of my dress (to stop me from overthinking the decision for several months). There are several other people who sew on Twitch and create cosplays, so if you’re into that, you may enjoy looking around the crafting communities; the platform is not just for gamers, trust me.
Even if you don’t follow me there, expect to see more work out of me in general, that’s for sure! At the rate I’m sewing, I may be busting out a new dress every couple of weeks, rendering my need for more closet space even more of a crisis than it currently is. See you soon (hopefully!).