Cottoning onto Fall?

I’ve decided to join my first Sewalong!  I’ve seen lots of them around the internets for years now and have always been sorry that it never worked out for me to participate.  Usually the theme was incompatible with what I had going on at the time, or I would find out too late.  But I think it just may work out for me to join in the fun of the Fall for Cotton vintage sewalong.

I’ve spent the past few days working out what I want to make, and after a few changes of mind I think I’ve decided.  This was a challenge for me because when the air starts changing around this time of year, and I start seeing leaves on the ground (first one was a couple days ago, not to mention the near-constant ‘thunks’ of acorns falling from the oak trees in front of our condo building) my thoughts turn to wool, not cotton.  For me, cotton is mostly for summer, maybe also spring.  In case I haven’t mentioned before, I live in Canada.  I don’t live in northern Canada, but I’m already seeing people in boots.  I will be one of them soon enough.  So – if this challenge had been Fall for Wool I can tell you I’d be more than set, I have tons of awesome-for-fall woollens in my stash.  Not so many cottons of that description.  And with the size of stash I have, I REALLY should not buy for this.

Perhaps I should also point out that when I approach sewing for fall, I go for autumn colours hard-core.  I LOVE fall colours, they’re so rich and go so well with my hair! ;o)  Burnt orange, eggplant, brown, maroon, olive green, teal, jewel tones in general.  I am willing to use, say, greys to pair with the richer colours, but not much else.  My cotton fabrics stash does not have many of these colours in it.  I did identify a few pieces with the right colours and after humming and hah-ing between them and vintage pattern possibilities I finally made a decision I’m really happy with.  I have one piece of cotton that is perfect for fall – this dark purple corduroy with an embroidered design in the other colours I love for this time of year:

(They are a little washed out in this photo.  I caught the light at a bad time, hopefully finished dress photos will show it better!)

I’ve had this piece for years and never knew just what to do with it somehow.  I think I initially intended it for a jacket, but at 1.7m and only about 40″ wide (the embroidery stops before the selvedge) there wasn’t enough for that.  So it languished as I looked at it each Sept/Oct since and fretted over what it should be.  Recently I started thinking a box-pleated skirt, which I think would work really well for the fabric, but the style I would make may be less so for the sewalong.  I do only have limited sewing time for stuff like this as I have 3 pretty big projects starting up around October (I’ll be introducing the first one soon!) so I knew it was unrealistic to consider making that skirt idea and then something else for the sewalong.  Then today I saw this pattern and knew it would be just right:

I think the piece of corduroy is just the right amount to get this dress out of it.  I’m going to make view 5 – the short length with short sleeves – but with a plain collar, no little tie.  I really like the look of the tie, but the corduroy is too heavy for it and I don’t have any other cottons in the right weight that co-ordinate with it.

How about a close-up:

Hmmm, that sleeveless version would be ‘totes adorbs’ (to quote the Lydia Bennet) for summer, wouldn’t it?  And talk about your classic LBD.

Anyway, I’m hoping to be able to sew this up over next week, provided I can get the current time-sucker project of last week and this week done and out of the way soon (I’ll be posting about this one shortly).

I’m really excited to finally be using up this piece, having a cute new Fall dress, and finally joining in some sewalong fun!