A Quick Review of 2017

Well it's only been forever. My last post was over a year ago, and a lot has/hasn't happened since then.

The first immediate bad news - I haven't sewn anything remotely historical in that time period. However, that doesn't mean I haven't done any sewing.

The good news is I still have sewn - a lot. My sewing took a bit of a retro swing (no pun intended) and I've been making oodles of dresses - 10 in fact! I've had a variety of fabrics in my stash for a while and at the beginning of the year, I made a promise to myself that I would try to work through it. In addition, I thought it would be fun to have several dresses for my destination wedding in August (more on that in a bit). Here's a quick overview of everything that was made, in no particular order of completion.

Christmas holiday dress - Retro Butterick B5748, Halloween dress - McCall's Archive Collection M7086

These were both made for work. They relax dress code during Christmas time for us and allow us to wear holiday colors, so I had to make a dress for the holiday season. I found this fun vintage-looking fabric on sale and it screamed to be made into a dress. This was my third go at the pattern (a reprint from 1960) and since I already had modified pieces for my measurements, it went together in a matter of a couple days.

My ghost dress I tried to finish in time for Halloween but failed. Part of the problem was I attempted to make it using a pattern I had not used before, so I had to do make a mock-up then adjust for my measurements. This McCall's reprint from 1963 was modified and I did away with the faux belt decoration on the front. Hopefully I'll have a chance to wear it for Halloween this year!

Bridal shower dress - Gertie's Ultimate Dress Book by Gretchen Hirsch, dress for fun - Retro Butterick B5748

Going Gaga for Gertie

Oh I did the most horrible thing this summer! It started way back when I needed more fabric for my Hawaiian pleated skirt made during my retro binge. The local Joann's closest to me was sold out so we traveled down to another location that had the fabric. Lo and behold! This Joann's had WAAAY more apparel fabric than my local one, including the Gertie Collection.

I knew nothing about Gretchen Hirsch (the designer) apart from I loved all the fabrics (think border prints, bright tropicals, and quirky retro designs) and after leafing through the accompanying patterns, found them to be pretty easy for putting together.

Several sales, endless coupons, and multiple trips later, I accumulated this:

My horrible math skills tell me there is about 41 yards of material in here.

And this doesn't include ALL the patterns. Just ones I wanted.

Retro is quickly becoming a quick part of my everyday life because it's a fun way to jazz up my black wardrobe for work, and it's super comfy because in all honesty, I could live in skirts and dresses.

Measure Thrice and Cut Twice

So a couple months ago I went on a 1950s bender and bought a bunch of vintage and vintage-inspired patterns. The first project I decided to work on was a Hawaiian print, pleated skirt.

McCall's M6706 Pleated Skirt

I have not used McCall's before so I did a lot of measuring before hand to pick out the size that would work best for me, since nothing ever runs true to the given measurements it seems.

So I picked my size and starting  putting everything together. The first problem I ran into before I could even cut out my pattern pieces though is my fabric was too narrow for the pieces.