Dressing Myself

Add'l ETA:
After taking pics, I noticed that the neckline on the argyle dress was still standing away from my neck a tad bit too much.  Initially I thought about using 1/4" clear elastic, but remembered a garment that had back shoulder darts.  Of course, I was sweating up a storm rummaging in the closet by time I found it, which was a jacket.  Opted for the darts and feel its much better now.

ETA:

I wore the snake print dress again on Thursday and in an instant my mind detoured from my initial thoughts for this weekend, which was to sew another pair of pants. I did manage to cut the fabric as well as another Butterick 5147 jacket from fabric I'd purchased at Fabric.com early this year. However, my mind screamed Dress and decided I wanted one for next week, especially with the temps expected to peak again in the 90s with humidity following right behind it.  Kindly put away what I'd cut and pulled out the pieces from my vacation dress and an olive stretch poly/rayon knit fabric that I purchased from Virgo Fabric & Notions (I really should call it clay, since the color closely resembles it or better yet putty).

This time I had no issues with assembling the dress, it went together in just a few hours... well more like 4 hours. All of the seams were serged & straight stitched and instead of using 1/4" clear elastic, I used 1/4" black bias tape for the neckline and 7/8" quilting binding for the ties.

The opening for the tie, which I do a buttonhole is a tad bit small, so there was a lil struggle getting the tie through the opening...uggh and the stabilizer shifted during the buttonholing causing part of the buttonhole to end up without stabilizer...double uggh, so used extra fray check.  As usual I refused to change the serger threads so blue it was..lol

Despite those quirks, the dress fits nicely.
 

 
Since that dress took only a few hours, I decided what the heck... make another one. I did my usual calisthenics of napping and after a few hours was refreshed and ready for the second one.
 
This dress is called my Carolyn Dress, which was inspired by Carolyn after she notified me of argyle fabric at Fabric.com, such an enabler she is...snickering.  I mentioned to her that I wasn't going to buy any argyle fabric being that I had some that I hadn't sewn yet.  I'd purchased 2 yds of pink/grey cotton/jersey from Walmart for a $1.50/yd some time ago and had initially pegged it for a cardigan, but later on decided against it.  So it languished in my fabric draw until now.


 

For this dress I did the usual serging of all seams, this time the serger had black thread... so black it was.  Prior to starting the dress, I took a moment to do some house cleaning and I also sewed bathroom window curtains and refused to change the thread again.  I so need that Babylock Imagine.
 
 I used lt. grey 1/2" bias tape for the neckline, which ended up wonky... what the heck. To keep this dress from becoming a wadder, in the process of attaching the sleeves, instead of pairing the sleeve cap to the top of the armscye exactly, I eased the sleeve in about an 1/2" farther.   In doing so it removed some of the wonkiness at the back of the neckline.  I will say the neck opening sits closer to my shoulder, but it doesn't take from the dress, I will be wearing it.. no doubt.  For the waist ties, I used the same fashion fabric.  
 
Without further ado....heeeeeeeeeeere is the Carolyn Dress... and now I have reason to buy more argyle fabric...teehee.
 

Off to check out Fabric.com's argyle selection.... until then have a Great Weekend