Hey, Macaranna!

I thought I should write a separate post about attaching the By Hand London Anna bodice to the Colette Macaron skirt for my That Million Dolly Look #sewDollyClackett dress. The genius of this mashup, as I thought, is that in each case you get rid of the half that has eleventy billion pattern pieces. I reduced the number of pieces even further by cutting the back bodice on the fold. You would think this was a match made in sewing heaven, wouldn't you?

Well, yes. But you would make a muslin first. You would be clever and avoid any mistakes before you started sewing the real thing.

Me? Not so much.

Look, the bodice fit me, the skirt fit me, they're both close fitting at the waist, and I wasn't going to fuss about the pleats and darts not matching up since the pattern was fairly busy... what could possibly go wrong?

What did go wrong^* was that the front bodice was about an inch too narrow for the front skirt, while the back bodice was two inches too wide. Bizarre. I originally thought I would have to resew all the pleats, but I tried unpicking them from the bottom just to the seam line, pinning the skirt to the bodice in the centre and sort of stretching the bodice to fit. The pleats became more of a box pleat at the bottom, but you can't really tell unless you look really closely. A good sewist would have unpicked and readjusted the pleats so they were knife sharp again.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions from that.

I thought the back would be really easy to deal with; just make the darts an inch wider and resew them. The problem was that widening the darts throughout meant taking away from the seam allowance to the point where I couldn't close the side seam. Leaving the bottom tucks meant that it would be poofy at the bottom. A good look in the front, not so much in the back. I decided to sew the waist seam, install the side zip, and deal with the poofy once I had a dress that fit.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Make a muslin. Or at least baste fit the thing before sewing.

Anyway, when the DC came home from work, I had him pin the darts closed while I was wearing the dress, then I used a blind stitch to close them up. I think they look like regular darts if you don't look too closely.


It's hard to see the white hand stitches on the outside of the seams in the next photo, but you can see how much I had to take the darts in by.

Even with all that, I really like the way this dress turned out. Should you choose to do this mashup, I recommend the muslin idea, because you will need to adjust both the pleat and dart widths on the bodice. I would also suggest moving the inner skirt front pleats out to line up with the outer bodice pleats; likewise moving the back bodice darts in to line up with the skirt pleats. It's also very snug at the waist, so take that into account if you'd prefer something a bit looser.

Oh, and check to see how high the side zip needs to go so you can pull the dress on and off without hurting something. This was my first invisible zip and I'm pretty proud of the job. Which is why I don't want to rip it out to shift it higher.

I'm inching closer to finishing the LGRAB dress and will update the previous post when it's done. I will also get around to posting something about the shoe clips.



^*What else went wrong was the usual thing that happens when I reuse a pattern but don't reread the instructions first. Let's just say that it is possible to add the pockets after you've sewn the Macaron skirt pleats. I don't recommend it. Also, in one of my three attempts at sewing the seam above the invisible zip, I managed to sew right through the zipper stop. Which broke it. I'm planning to cover it with a piece of grosgrain ribbon if it turns out to be super scratchy, but so far I haven't noticed a problem.

At the risk of bragging, one of the things I’m best at is riding coattails.

One of my favourite sewing bloggers is Roisin, aka Dolly Clackett. She's getting married in a month, and to celebrate both her wedding and her inimitable sense of style we have the Sew Dolly Clackett sewalong, hosted by Rhinestones and Telephones. The goal: make a dress inspired by Roisin.

Did I say inimitable? Absolutely. Won't stop us from trying though; a chance to steal from Roisin without seeming like a creepy stalker? Sign me right up. I knew immediately which pattern I would be using: the Anna from By Hand London, for those of you who've wandered in off the non-sewing street. Roisin has made something like eight versions which bumped this pattern to the top of the buy-this-as-soon-as-my-2013-pattern-moratorium-is-lifted list. Which I did. I don't think I even waited until January 1st.

Months of talking a game and planning plans have come to fruition. Let's see if I have my Clackettisms in order.
Blog title that is a reasonably obscure quote from popular culture? Check.
Ferocious footwear? Check.
Door and iron railings? Check.
Frocks with fancy names?

CHECK!

Allow me to introduce the Death is Now My Neighbour dress, the Down in the Distant Electric Avenue dress, the unfinished Let's Go Ride a Bike dress, and the That Million Dolly Look dress. Four Three and seventh-eighth dresses, my friends. Not quite up to Roisin's output^*, but still. Get comfortable; this could take a while.

Pancake of the Month: Lemon-Poppy Seed

I'm not religious, but the idea of Easter as a sign of spring maybe, finally arriving had me thinking about sunny flavours. This recipe from Joy the Baker (I told you I was probably going to be cooking my way through her blog, but at least it's not Chatelaine again, right?) was just the ticket.

I love the idea of rubbing lemon peel in the granulated sugar. Not sure why, exactly.


The result?

Various bits of geekery

Still head-down in marking and making some progress on the sewing, but I thought I'd pop in to remind everyone in the Americas, Australasia, and East Asia that there will be a total lunar eclipse Monday night (or early Tuesday morning). In Toronto, it will be from 1:58 AM until 4:24 AM. Phil Plait has a nice article about it here.

For everyone in the Toronto area, the penultimate^* Nerd Nite is this Thursday at the Transac Club. If you live elsewhere, there's probably be a Nerd Nite in your area. They're running in about 65 cities in quite a few different countries. Check this link to find out.



^*Before they break for summer, that is. Not forever. I sincerely hope.

Attacking the mayor with hummus: MMM14 & various sewing plans

I've been mostly head-down marking labs and tests, but I'm taking a wee break for the quarterlyish check-in on my sewing projects. Before I get to that, it's Me-Made-May pledge-time again.



I, aem² of PhysicsGirl on the Loose, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '14. I will endeavour to wear something me-made every day, with something sewn by me at least five times a week. Further, I will finish any UFOs and wear them at least once by the end of the month.

The point is to challenge yourself, and to up the ante from last year. My avowed challenge last year was to wear something I had made 3-4 times per week, and the secret challenge was to wear something every day, which I did, but only by wearing the heck out of my scarves and careful placement of earrings. I have more sewn-by-me garments this year, so I know I can wear at last one thing I've made every day, and I'm aiming for something I've sewn (or which is a major piece of construction, like a sweater) five times a week. Along with finishing any outstanding UFOs, I'd like to finish a new garment and wear it by the end of the month, but I have a lot of UFOs, so new stuff may go on the back burner. Despite the fact that I've pretty much given up on Fat Mum Slim's monthly photo challenge, I will use the prompts again to help focus the photos. And I will take the photos in different locations around the city, in keeping with the general spirit of this blog. To make it slightly more interesting for you, however, I think I'll try to make a guessing game of it. Where's PhysicsGirl?

Energy fail: Sew for a change #2

This month, I did not even come close to meeting the Sew for a Change energy challenge. I fell down pretty much where I expected to: most of the time I remember to unplug the microwave and flick the internet switch, but not always. And my TV and DVD player are usually unplugged, but we watched a lot of movies this month and I often forgot to unplug them afterwards. I was really hoping to get into the habit of unplugging daily, but I failed too often. However I will keep trying. Also, I will get around to vacuuming behind the fridge soon, although I'm kind of afraid to see what's back there.

I did not too badly on the rest of the challenge. Although I rent and don't control my utilities, I learned a bit about Bullfrog Power, which you pay to put clean energy into the system. The DC and I are still working out our cohabitation budget, but this is something I'd like to look into more. My fridge runs a degree too cold, but it's old and wonky and any adjustment makes it too warm. And I've always been good about not letting the water run when I'm not using it, whether washing dishes, hands, or teeth. I realized, though, that I have to be careful when I wash my lunch dishes at school to turn off the tap when I'm not rinsing.

So no extra 10 points for me. Which is not good, because I went a little crazy with #sewDollyClacket fabric and jewellery supplies this month. So I'm down to 40 points, and that worries me because I know I'm going to have to buy new stockings in the fall (one of my favourite pairs developed a huge hole in the shin -- which is a look, I guess). And stockings are expensive, point-wise.

So here is the score card of shame.

(I've modified the points for jewellery supplies: 1 pt if it's for a single-use item (in this case, one pair of chandlier earring findings) and 3 pts for multi-use items (this month, 2 packages of 20 shoe clips).

Fortunately, I have no plans to buy anything else this month, and I'm pretty sure I'll pass this month's paper challenge. My job is pretty paper-intensive by nature, but I already save one-sided paper to print on and try to avoid creating unnecessary photocopies. In one of my classes, the assignments for the rest of the year will be paperless, which will be a huge savings. We already use paper towels as little as possible, and make sure to get the select-a-size -- and even then I'll tear the small ones in half. The trick is to fold the paper, as I learned from this TED talk:

It really works.

Most of my monthly bills and statements are already online, so I just need to deal with one. I sort of want to keep the last one as a paper bill because it's a visual reminder to me to pay my bills, but I'll probably change it. I put up a 'no flyers' sign a few years ago, but it recently fell off due to weather and age and I haven't gotten around to redoing it -- the problem with living three floors up is that I often forget stuff by the time I've climbed all those stairs -- but I'm going to put one back up this weekend. With duct tape.

As for magazines, I already save them for Arts Junktion, and I'm cancelling the one magazine that I not only don't really read anymore, but they insist on mailing to me swathed in plastic. Every. single. time.

Now excuse me while I go and unplug the microwave.