Red + Aqua Spring/Autumn Dress

This dress post is even more belated than the summer ones from this year as I made it back in the spring. However, since I’ve also been wearing it over fall I thought I could get away with still posting about it.

It’s actually one of my overall favourite dresses right now because it’s both so pretty and super comfortable!

It’s made of lovely soft, swishy rayon challis in an aqua/pink/red print, with solid red rayon for the accenting bands.

2016 Summer Frock Parade – Yes, there’s one more

This is the final summer dress I made this year. It’s also quite possibly the most comfortable, making me wish it had been the first. But at least it was done in time to help get me through the horrors of August heat/humidity. It was also a favourite during my recent trip to Italy in September.

It’s made using the same bodice pattern as the Flamingo dress, just altering it back to be sleeveless (as per one of the options with the original Burda WOF pattern). For reference, the pattern is number 112 from the November 2007 issue of the Burda magazine when it was still Burda World of Fashion, so unfortunately earlier than they started archiving them on the website.

Oh but look, I did just find an image of the line drawing from the Russian site on Pinterest:

The skirt is just 3 panels of the 54-60″ wide fabric gathered/pleated up using the ruffler foot on my Singer Featherweight.

It’s made from a really lovely cotton voile I’d had in the stash for a few years. I love the swirly, impressionistic print of it and the combination of light and dark olive greens with hints of aqua/turquoise.

It also happens to be THE perfect fabric for DC summers – so lightweight and cool, and with just a hint of crispness to it that keeps the surface smooth and cool. I have some more of this fabric in an abstract watercolour-ish print in shades of mauve that I was hoping to make up this year, but it will now have to wait until next spring. Next summer it is quite possible that I will live entirely in these two dresses (unless I can get my hands on more cotton voile of this type).

2016 Summer Frock Parade – Vintage Bedsheet Dress

This is a second dress inspired by this vintage early 60s (?) one with the button tab shoulders:

2016 Summer Frock Parade – Light Grey Cotton

When I finished this dress back in early summer it was actually a UFO from the end of summer last year and who doesn’t love getting a UFO off their hands?

This is the pattern I used for the bodice, only I made it sleeveless and brought the neckline in a bit as I didn’t want it quite so wide. For the skirt I just cut 2 selvedge to selvedge panels and pleated it up into the waist.

2016 Summer Frock Parade – Flamingos!

While the border print dress of my last post may actually be the most beautiful dress I made this summer I do believe this one is the most fun, because:

FLAMINGOS!!!!

2016 Summer Frock Parade – Vintage Lavender

This is probably my favourite of all the dresses I made this summer, I just love how it turned out.

This was the happy result of a vintage dress inspiration and the right fabric coming along at the right time.

Here is the original dress that happened along my Pinterest feed and set the ball rolling:

Summer Frock Parade 2016 – Ivory/Coral/Aqua mini print cotton lawn

So now that summer is officially over, let me start catching up on posting my summer sewing! Ha.

More Summer Dresses!

Whoopsie-doodle, looks like I took an unintended summer break from blogging – but not from sewing!

It’s technically still summer until Sept 20/21, so I’m not too late to post these….right?

Here’s some more of what I’ve been wearing this summer and a bit of where I’ve been, lol.

First up is yet another modified Macaron dress. Pity it’s so washed out in this photo as it was the best one of me. This is at a winery called “The Grange”. My husband and I did a little Prince Edward County winery tour one day. If you’re ever in eastern Ontario during the summer or early fall, I HIGHLY recommend doing this! It’s a spectacularly beautiful area, and a lot of the wine is really good! We came home with…….a goodly supply. ;o)

My MMM’14 Challenge Exception

In my first MeMadeMay post I mentioned that I’d allow myself one exception to the ‘sewing with only Indie patterns’ part of my personal challenge because I’d already planned & started it.

This post is about that dress.

Which was inspired by this dress I saw on Modcloth (probably one of my favourite places for idea shopping, I must confess)

MMM’14 Weeks 3 & 4

Super late post, but I did fulfill my pledge for MeMadeMay’14, both in terms of wearing at least one make from an Indie pattern per week and sewing only with Indie patterns for the month. Now, to be fair/honest I sewed several duplicates of a few patterns. I need new summer dresses and making a couple from the same pattern in a weekend was the most efficient/effective way to achieve this with my available time and applicable Indie patterns.

I’ve combined weeks 3 & 4 because a) I’d be even later if I did a post for each and b) there was a lot of repeat items over these 2 weeks.  But, they were all new makes, so it’s still fun!  The weather’s been funny over the past couple of weeks – very up & down, one day sunny and hot, the next cold and rainy, or sunny but with a strong cool wind. So what ended up happening is that I’d wear a new make on a nice day, plan to wear an older Indie pattern make the next, but the weather wouldn’t co-operate, oh well.  New stuff is more fun to show anyway!

So here we go:

On Tuesday and Wednesday of week 3 I wore 2 modified Macarons I’d made the previous weekend, I then wore them again on Tuesday and Friday of week 4.

Here’s #1: