Linen Arum dress and my embrace of looser garments

Hello again friends! Today I am writing about the Arum dress from Deer and Doe. This pattern is a simple kimono sleeve tee dress with gentle shaping from back princess seams. 

Pattern: Deer and Doe: Arum

Fabric: blue floral linen from Mood fabrics

Listening to: Reply All (😍 )

Back in the day, I was ALL about fitted, full skirted dresses- if my waist wasn't accentuated I felt like a potato sack, and I was extremely self conscious about my hips being exposed so the full skirt was a must. Maybe it's getting older, or maybe it's living in the sweat bucket of summer in NYC but I am allllll about styles with more ease and relaxed fits now. I spend a lot of time outside in the summer because I crave the sunlight and I basically hibernate in the winter, but that means I require a few things from my garments. Namely, that they are cool, comfy, breathable, and when I get REALLY sweaty it is hard to tell. Clothes with more ease certainly aid in these goals, and this dress definitely checks all the boxes! The linen is super breathable and is thick enough that it actually doesn't wrinkle too badly just by existing on my body. One bonus of getting pretty sweaty though- natural steaming for wrinkly linen! (Gross... kidding.... kind of but not really. Seriously sometimes I think it helps the linen settle back into looking more pressed D:)

Grossness aside, this fabric is really great. After washing and drying (I always wash and dry linen before using it, no matter my best efforts it's only a matter of time before everything I own takes a trip through the washer/dryer.) it got relatively soft, and shrunk a bit such that it became mostly opaque. I was a bit concerned that the dress would end up being a little translucent, but it seems ok, maybe I'll avoid wearing it at night with flash photography though!

This pattern was great, very easy obviously, but came together nicely. There were no lengthen/shorten lines so I cut at the waist notches on all pieces and extended about 1.5 inches (the standard length I add to all patterns in the torso). I think I probably hemmed with a smaller hem than the pattern called for also- I often don't read that portion of the instructions.... Probably should! I generally finish things with french seams since I don't have a serger and I don't particularly like the way pinking looks for finishing. Recently though for some reason the little french seam tube has kind of been bothering me, so in this dress I topstitched the seam down about 1/8" from the seamline. The fabric is busy so you can't really see it, but I think it's a cute detail to add. I've been thinking of making this dress in a slightly stretchy fabric 1-2 sizes down for winter+tights  and it might be something cute to add to that. 

Per usual, my hatred of neckline facings won out (seriously, why do I hate them so much?) So I finished the neck with white bias binding. The hem and sleeves are just turned up and hemmed. Also, the pattern calls for a tiny pocket which is a detail that I love, but the fabric is already so busy I thought that a pocket would just look weird by messing up what pattern there already was. Anyway I decided to try and make the pocket blend into the designwhich worked out pretty well! (can you spot it?) Incognito pocket only has a slight bump where the pattern doesn't quite continue correctly. You can't really tell the pocket is there so maybe it was pointless, but on the other hand perhaps one day when I'm wearing the dress I will find something tiny and adorable that I can stick in there and it will be worth it! Anyway this dress makes me fantasize about sipping a cocktail somewhere tropical and beautiful by the ocean, and it's currently a muggy, sweaty, thunderstorm here in ny so maybe I'll go try to make like 1/3 of that dream come true. (ok, it's the cocktail)

Denim Crescent Skirt

Hello again!

Today I'm posting about a fun make- the crescent skirt! My general tendency is to make dresses, but a lot of times I don't feel like wearing a dress/I want separates so I have been trying to make more basic separates. I think a lot of bloggers have mentioned this before but I definitely sometimes struggle to make pieces I KNOW I will wear, rather than something that is fun but impractical for one reason or another. Enter- a nice denim crescent!

Pattern: Sewaholic Crescent Skirt, View B

Fabric: Washed indigo 8oz denim from Style maker fabrics, small amount of woven Ikat also from Style Maker

Listening to: Up and Vanished (Just me or did this end a bit anticlimactically...)

Drinking: WINE

Also pictured: 3 sloth moon shirt

When I was in high school I actually had a skirt JUST like this that I found in a thrift store with a broken zipper- I replaced the zipper and then wore the skirt TO DEATH. Eventually I think the zipper wore out again and I replaced it again, but at that point the whole side was a frayed mess. I managed to find a picture of it!!

Being awkward in beautiful places

Anyway, back to crescent. When sewaholic announced the pattern I immediately remembered my beloved skirt and thought the pattern would be perfect to recreate it. One of the things I loved about the original skirt was that it was made in a slightly heavier denim so despite the gathers it didn't blow up in wind very easily. Since the denim I chose was a bit heavier, I only interfaced 1/2 of the waistband pieces, instead of both sides as the pattern directed. I added a bit of length (an inch? just eyeballed it) to the skirt and made the hem a little narrower than instructed. I also contemplated contrast topstitching, but I wanted the skirt to be a bit dressier and I worried that denim style topstitching in copper or yellowish would make the skirt look more casual/kind of silly and I couldn't think of another color so I stuck with black. I love the fitted waistband, it doesn't ride up at all and comes to the perfect spot at my waist. The pattern also fit perfectly as is (I cut a 4) which I loved! I generally have a good amount of space at the waist in patterns as written but not this time :) I usually wear this skirt with crop tops since it comes up nice and high so not too much skin shows, but I was already wearing my sloth shirt on this particular day and didn't really feel like changing into something else. I think this outfit will definitely end up in my rotation now!

This pattern went together very easily/quickly and the instructions were great! I made a mistake though (or should I say... added a feature!!!) when I was cutting. Since the fabric was so heavy I didn't want to make the entire pocket in the same denim, so I used a small piece of this woven Ikat I had leftover from another project. I forgot that with slash pockets the top of the bag forms the top side of the skirt, and didn't make the pockets as symmetrical as I could have given that some of the Ikat pattern shows. Ultimately I could have cut the back pocket piece out of the denim but I decided I liked the contrast from the ikat, but didn't have enough to recut so that the pattern was more even. Oh well! Still happy with how it came out. I also had a pretty nice metal zip in my stash so I decided to go with an exposed zip. I know some people hate on the exposed zips but I really like them! 

I can see in this picture (since I don't typically look too much at my back) that I could probably add a hook and eye at the top to keep the zipper from gapping. It does zip all the way up but I guess falls a bit when I wear it. Also the zipper I had was pretty nice but also like forest green (why did I end up with that color metal zipper? More intriguing- why do I have 5 of them?) but the stitching goes close up enough to the teeth that I don't think you can really tell. 

Final close up of the seaming and topstitching! I really like the waistband on this skirt, it's super flattering. You can see a hint of the green zipper I used but from the right side it doesn't show too much! This pattern also lends itself really well to neat insides- I used french seams for the sides and just zig zagged the edges of a pockets since I don't have a serger (whomp whomp), but otherwise, the whole waistband is totally encapsulated and tidy. And that's pretty much it! Going to go mope and listen to the cure like I would have in my old favorite skirt.