Me Made May ’13 – Week 1 Round-up

First off, thank you SO MUCH for the lovely comments on my lace trench yesterday! SHUCKS, Y’ALL. You sure know how to make a girl feel special

Now, let’s round up the first week of Me-Made-May! I know, it’s not a full proper week… but I like to do my round-ups on Friday, soooo deal with it.

5/1
Dress: Cake Patterns Tiramisu
Cardigan: Miette
Shoes: Nine West
I spent most of this day sitting in a car (on my first ever ~business trip~ woohoo), so I opted for something comfortable that wouldn’t wrinkle. As a side note, those 4+ hours as a passenger meant I got a LOT of knitting done. Expect a sweater post sooner than later, ha.
Also, welcome to the ugly side of my sewing room.

5/2
Tshirt: Sewaholic Renfrew
Skirt: Vogue 8317
Belt: Banana Republic
Shoes: Thrifted (yes, I’m totally gross and I thrift shoes, DGAF)
I need to find more ways to wear this skirt, because every time I do I get SO many compliments on it (usually in the form of, “Oh, I love that skirt… OMG I LOVE THE BACK!!!!” haha). I think it would be really fun paired with navy, or even teal.

5/3
Top: Papercut Patterns La Sylphide
Jeans: Imogene+Willie
Shoes: Keds
(not shown: Sewaholic Patterns Minorou jacket)
These jeans are my one piece of “cheat” clothing. MMM is all about focusing on wearing, well, me-mades, but let’s be real here – these are my only pair of jeans (yep!) and May is most likely the very last month I’m going to be able to wear them before it gets too hot for the summer. Considering I paid a shit ton of money for them and I love the everloving shit outta them, I decided the jeans are my free pass as long as the rest of the outfit is LT-made. I mean… they are handmade, just by someone else. That counts, right?
Also, it’s cold today and I wanted to wear pants. So there.

So that’s that! A short week of Me Made May; next Friday should be a little more interesting

Now, let’s talk about the new Vogue patterns that just came out.

They are actually pretty boring, sad to say Like a good 3/4 of them look exactly like patterns that were released last season, or the season before… just different fabrics and/or models. I do want to point out that whoever they have modeling with the red hair is a TOTAL BABE.

Vogue 1354
Am I right? BABE CITY USA.
I don’t even notice the ridic poses because I’m too busy being jealous THAT I DON’T LOOK LIKE THAT.

Then there’s this:

Vogue 8900
It’s… interesting. Definitely not a style that many people can pull off (both waist cut-outs AND a top that can barely accommodate a bra), but I don’t think pattern companies necessarily need to make stuff that flatters *everyone*, you know? I’ll give them credit for being interesting, and ignore all those seams that are screaming to be pressed.

Then these happened:

Vogue 8913
I think we’ve reached a breaking point with these unnecessary buttflaps.

Vogue 8914
Everything about this is just unfortunate.

Vogue 8895
Someone please tell me in what world this dress would be considered flattering?! Her head looks so tiny in comparison!

Vogue 8897
Hideously unflattering tunic aside (which, I might add, is eerily similar to this previous hideously unflattering tunic) it appears that their iron must have exploded during the making of this since NOTHING is pressed. Just looking at that hem is making my eye twitch.

The rest of the patterns are so boring, they put me to sleep. Actually, that’s a great idea. I’m going to print them out and bind them in a little book for the next time I am dealing with insomnia. Thanks, Vogue!

Completed: The Blue Lace Robson (!!!)

Ok folks, here ya go – big reveal time!

LOOK THAT GORGEOUS BLUE TRENCH COAT.

JUST LOOK AT IT.

For the full nitty-gritty of this project, see my posts part 1 and part 2 for the making of.

If you just want quick facts, here ya go! The pattern is the Robson Coat by Sewaholic Patterns. I cut a size 2 at the shoulders/neckline, graded out to a 4 at the bust, and then down to a 0 at the waist/hips. I removed about 3″ of length from the bottom, and about 1″ of length from the sleeves.

Both of the main fabrics are from Mood – the blue lace for the top (and yeah, sorry, but I bought the last of it! HA!), and the cotton sateen underlining. The polka dot batiste I used for the bias stripes came from my local fabric store. I’m sure Mood had something perfect in the store, but it’s hard to color-match from several states away (and if you were wondering… I had one of the employees help me pick the underlining to make sure I had the right color).

Fair warning: this coat eats up a LOT of fabric! Not the full 6 yards as suggested by the pattern envelope (at least not in my size!), but I still wouldn’t recommend this for a very expensive fabric unless you are just really really in love and willing to deal with the cost. I spent about $175 on materials for this coat – that includes the blue lace, the navy underlining, the polka dots that I used for the bias strips, the interfacing, the thread, and the buttons. Yes, part of this *was* subsidized for Mood as part of the Mood Sewing Network, but I still had to pay quite a bit out of pocket. I’m not saying it’s not worth it – because it isssssss – but be forewarned that this coat can get very very expensive, very fast.

Still, it’s a helluva lot cheaper than that $2000 Burberry trench I see floating around Pinterest. Forreal!

Plus, it’s not a boring neutral color. That fucker is BLUE.

Anyway, I used a little under 4 yards of 54″ wide fabric to cut the coat. Keep in mind that I did shorten the length (and my ONLY regret is that I shortened at the hem instead of at the waist because the pockets are a bit low. Oh well! I don’t use pockets that much anyway). My cotton sateen was 50″ and I used about 4.5 yards of that. For the bias tape, I bought 2/3 yard of 45″ fabric and made my own 1/2″ tape…. I did not use the whole 2/3 of the yard, as I stopped when I got to 20 yards. I did however, end up using about 15 yards of the stuff to bind my seams. I know the envelope calls for less than that, buy an extra package if you’re unsure!

I can wear the lapels up or folded down. Which one do you like better?

Here it is open. Omg I felt like such a flasher taking that picture, ha!

Ok, I’m running out of things to say so here’s a picture dump.

I could not be more thrilled with my finished coat – all the workings of a classic trench, but sewn up in a beautiful (and colorful!) lace! Yes!!

Special thanks to my friend Jenna for taking these gorgeous pictures (oh yeah, you didn’t think I took these, did ya? ) and capturing our beautiful city in the background. She is the best, and if you don’t already follow her you are SORELY missing out. Also, sorry not sorry for the picture overload… I’m just elated, ok!?

Yay Nashville!

Sewing the Robson Trench Coat, part 2

Following up on last week’s Robson progress post, I have a few more bits and pieces I’d like to share before the ~big reveal~. I normally hate dragging these types of projects out over several posts, but I think this coat deserves more than just a single post (plus, I haven’t taken pictures of my newest projects! So consider this filler, ha!).

Last week, I left off with the main body of the coat completed – everything from the collar, to the facing, to the hem. All that was left was the sleeves, the belt and belt loops, and the buttons. Easy enough, yeah?

I WISH. I about killed myself over those dumb ol’ sleeves! Putting them together was easy – even with the added step of trimming/grading the sleeves and adding the bias binding – but setting them in took me close to 2 hours, and there was lots of scream-cussing involved. The hardest part was getting the bias binding on the sleeve seam allowance once everything was set in – mostly because the area was obscenely thick with all those fabric layers, and also because I’m an idiot and I trimmed the seam allowances to super short before putting on the bias binding.

PROTIP: Sew one side of the bias binding on before you trim down those seam allowances. It will give you much more leeway in an area that’s already pretty tight to maneuver around.

I will say that, despite my troubles, those sleeves set in perfectly the first time – and they look beautiful! The drafting on this thing is pretty amazing.

Hemming the sleeves was also kind of tough, because the total circumference of the sleeve was smaller than the circumference by the throat plate. Which means I couldn’t just slide the sleeve over the arm of my sewing machine and go in the round – I had to do some horrible wedging and go VERY VERY slowly. To keep my hem even, I stuck a piece of tape on the arm of my machine (you can barely see it in this picture, if you squint) and used that as a guideline. My hems turned out pretty straight and even – not that you can see it with that busy lace pattern :B

I did come across one problem when sewing the sleeve tabs – the pattern calls for you to sew 3 edges, right sides together, and then turn right side out and press. Well, I tried that…

And, um well, I’m not sure exactly what happened. HAHA. I guess my loop turner just grabbed the lace and not both layers? Anyway, I was able to shove the underlining back inside the lace tube with a knitting needle, but it made me think about how I was going to tackle the belt and belt loops, since they are also sewn the same way.

To make the belt loops, I followed the same procedure as for the Thurlow belt loops. You can see a tutorial on that here (from my Thurlow sew-along!).

For the belt, I folded in 5/8″ along each edge and pressed it.

Then I folded the whole thing in half…

And topstitched along all four sides. This made for a nice, crisp belt – without having to worry about turning a long tube and ending up with that… thing.

Here is my finished belt. As you can see, I made a few changes – I decided to use a buckle instead of tying the belt, as I think it makes the coat look a little more trench-y. It’s just a basic self-covered buckle that I pulled out of my stash, and covered with the navy sateen that I used for underlining (also, the sticky guide in the kit was all dried up, so I used spray-mount on the fabric to get it to stick aaaaand I didn’t go outside to do this, so my sewing room may or may not be covered with spray glue jsyk). I also narrowed the belt by about an inch – I’m not sure exactly how much, I just kept hacking at it until it fit in the buckle. With this in mind, the belt loops were also shortened to accommodate the narrower belt.

With all that done, it was time to add the button holes and buttons! Not much to report on that – I used my button hole cutter to slice through the holes, and I am pleased to report that they are decidedly unhairy. The buttons were sewn on with silk thread, which I first ran through beeswax – I wanted them to stay on that damn coat! I moved the bottom buttons outward slightly, so the coat is more straight than A-line (I just think that suits my figure better!). Oh, and I didn’t bother with the interior buttons – I don’t ever use those things anyway, meh.

As it stands now, the coat is finished! I am so proud of it and I can’t WAIT to show it off I even got some super-fancy pictures taken, and damn it looks good.

Here is a sneaky peek because I can’t help myself.

Stay tuned!

Completed: Peacock Pullover

Hey look, I finished another sweater! What does this make, 8? Give me another year and I’ll have all those nasty arcylics in my closet replaced with glorious handknit wools, woohoo.

As boring as this name is (“Peacock Pullover”? Really? Whatever, you should know by now that I’m not imaginative with my garment names), calling something a pullover will always make me think of this:

Which is pretty much one of the best things (from one of the best movies) ever, amirite? Unfortunately, this sweater isn’t very exciting. You could stop reading this post right now and still get the general gist of it. It’s a basic raglan pullover with a crew neck. Snore.

But y’all know I’m a big proponent of making ~basics~. And this is totally a basic sweater, but hey – the color is fun, yeah?

This pattern is the Ladies Classic Raglan Pullover. Obviously, mine looks a bit different than the pictures on the project page, and I’m not just referring to the color. Mine is much more fitted as I prefer to have a bit of waist definition with my sweaters. It wasn’t too hard to get the fit adjusted, although in my first go, I didn’t try the sweater on enough and after finishing the waist I realized that it was WAY too big. Ugh! I spent an entire week ripping out about 30+ rounds of stockinette. It’s still a little big – there’s some weird bagging on the sides of the chest where the ease suddenly becomes positive instead of negative – but it fits pretty well for the most part.

If this is starting to look like deja-vu, that’s because Tasia recently(ish) knit this pattern in brown. I swear, I had it in my queue long before I saw her finished project, buuuuut I fully admit that her pictures were what moved the pattern to the top of the queue. God, she always knits the best stuff. I gotta stay out of her Ravelry or else I’m going to start looking like a total creeper, ha.

Anyway, I’m just going to glean over the basics here (if you want the full deets, check out my Ravelry notes). This is a size 33, with modifications to the waist and arm width. I used Plymouth Galway in a lovely peacock blue; it’s similar to my beloved Cascade 220 except a bit cheaper (and this was REALLY cheap, as I picked it up during the after-Christmas sale at Haus of Yarn). I started it during my flight to NYC, and finished earlier this week. It would have knitted up much faster had I not spent a week unknitting my boo-boo, but oh well

Next time I make this, I will probably go down another size, as well as make more decreases. It’s still a little too baggy for my liking.

At any rate, this is a great pattern – quick to knit, easy to customize (look at the other Raveler’s projects; some people have made their with STRIPES. Ooh!), and fairly mindless stockinette. I think this would make a great first-sweater pattern. Bonus – it doesn’t use a whole lot of yarn! Which means I still have like 3 skeins of that peacock blue laying in my yarn stash. Uh.

Sorry these pictures are bad, by the way! I took these yesterday as soon as I got home from work. Lesson learned – wait until the brightness of the sun goes down JUST A BIT. And yes, I am totally wearing shorts with my wool sweater. Whatever, it was like 80* outside and this is my blog and you can deal with it :B

But hey, spring is totally in the air. Here I am looking at the birds fussing at each other in the tree above me.

And lest you think I live in a mud pit (naw girl, that’s just the one part in front of my nasty-ass shed, ha), here is proof that the rest of the yard has exploded in green. I just realized that bush behind me is honeysuckle, and you have no idea how happy that makes me.

Sewing the Robson Trench Coat

Spoiler: There are no finished projects in this post, sry2say! I’ve been working on this coat for the past week, and I thought it might be beneficial to show some progress photos as well as share some tips

Anyway, let’s get down to business. Have y’all seen the newest addition to Sewaholic patterns – Robson Coat?! AHHH. I’m on Tasia’s pattern tester email list, and every time she sends out an email for testing, I’m almost always too busy with current projects/too poor to buy fabric (as was this case) so I have to pass… and I always think, “Man, I’m going to regret passing on this.” Sure enough, when the official announcement came out, I considered punching myself in the face out of frustration, because, FUCK. That coat is awesome and I need one, weather be dammed.

What really sealed the deal for me was getting an eyeful of Novita’s lace version. It’s just jaw-droppingly beautiful, and I immediately wanted to be a shameless copycat and make my own version (of course I asked first ).

This is the lace I am using for my coat:

It’s from Mood, of course, and I think I bought the last of the bolt in the store so you can’t have it nyah nyah nyah It’s labeled an outwear fabric, and it’s nice and weighty for a trench coat. At $20 a yard, it was definitely a splurge (and remember – I had to buy underlining, bias binding, buttons, thread, interfacing, all that fun stuff!), but I recalled Novita saying she only used 4m to make hers, so I ordered 4 yards and it was just enough. Yay! The lace is underlined with navy cotton sateen, and the bias binding is made with white/navy polka dot cotton batiste.

I’m not going to sugarcoat – this jacket requires quite a bit of stamina to make, as it takes a loong time. I spent at least 8 hours just prepping the dang thing, before I even got to sewing! Cutting the fabric pieces (twice, since they are underlined), making my own bias binding (because I clearly don’t have enough to do as it is), attaching the interfacing, basting the underlined pieces together, marking the notches, etc etc. I chose to do all this before I started sewing, just to get it out of the way.

My garment press made fusing interfacing fun! I just stuck the pieces in the press, sprayed them with water, and set a timer on my phone for 30 seconds. After 30 seconds, I flipped the pieces, sprayed them again, and fused for another 30 seconds. Since the press doesn’t require you to stand over it and hold it down (like an iron), I could get other things done in the meantime…

Such as prepping my thread and winding bobbins. My bobbin winder is amazing and self-motorized (no holding down the pedal!), so I was actually winding bobbins, fusing interfacing, AND dicking around on Instagram at the same time! GLORY.

Since my coat has several different colors going on, I am using three different thread colors. Part of what is making this take so long is that I have to keep changing out the thread with practically every step!

Deciding on how I would handle the underlining took a lot of thought. Since my lace is see-through and the inside of the coat is not lined, I had to take that into consideration when it came to fusing the (BRIGHT WHITE) interfacing to my pieces. Thankfully, all the interfaced pieces do require a facing on the opposite side, so I simply fused my underlining to the wrong side of my cotton sateen.

Then I stacked the lace on the sateen and basted the pieces together – all 30+ of them (yeah, there are a LOT of pieces in this pattern!). THAT PART TOOK FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER. Thankfully, I was able to get them machine-basted, which definitely sped up the process – I think I would have cried if I had to hand-baste all that!

More info on underlining can be found in this blog post, fyi!

I also had to consider how my button holes would look on the lace. Fortunately, my machine makes pretty awesome button holes, so combined with my new button hole cutter, I think they look pretty profesh, yeah?

I was planning to do a whole series of posts on this coat – but honestly, once I started sewing (like, actually sewing, and not prep :B), it’s pretty fast and straight forward! There isn’t a lot to elaborate on as far as the instructions are concerned. I did want to share a how I dealt with the binding, though – the instructions just have you fold the binding in half and wrap around the edges of the seam allowance (as like this), which is fine when you’re working with a lighter weight fabric – but not two thicker fabrics sewn together! I actually tried to bind a seam as per the instructions, and then laughed for about 20 minutes when I saw how ugly and sad it turned out!

So here’s my advice to you~ for those bound seams-

First, pull your seam allowances apart (you will need to remove the basting stitches holding the layers together) and trim down the shell fabric to 1/4″. This will greatly reduce the bulk of your seams, making it easier to wrap the bias binding around the remaining seam allowances.

Here is the seam with the shell fabric (blue lace) trimmed down. You may also want to trim down your underlining at this point – not too much, just enough to get the edges even if they aren’t already. As a sidenote, sorry about all the thread/cat hair. Apparently, cotton sateen is a magnet for EVERYTHING. Who woulda thought?

Open one side of your bias tape and pin it to the seam allowances, right sides together with raw edges matching.

Sew the bias tape to the seam allowances – try to get your stitching line right along the opened fold. I use a long basting stitch for this step; it’s really just to keep things in place while you top stitch.

When you flip the binding to the other side, it should naturally fall into place.

Top stitch with a matching thread. See how nice that looks? It’s an extra step for sure, but totally worth it in my opinion. With a thicker fabric, it can be hard to get that tiny bias tape folded around the edge with an even stitch and both sides caught in the fold. I’d rather take my time and get things done right the first time, rather than try to take short-cuts that result in a personal one-on-one with my seam ripper

Another tip if you’re sewing the Robson is to be sure to aggressively grade those seam allowances by the collar, because they can get real thick real fast.

I have the body mostly done at this point and it’s become quite a beast to wrangle under the sewing machine. I’ve taken to pulling my top drawer out and using it as a tabletop for the bulk of the coat.

Since all the interior seams are finished with binding, I haven’t needed my serger at all for this project – so I took the opportunity to take it in for it’s yearly cleaning/maintenance. As you can see, Amelia is pissed that she has to share her ~window seat~ with that dumb ol’ machine.

Anyway, it’s look great so far-

I love how nicely that collar rolls! Just beautiful!

I plan to have this finished within the next week or so. Since it’s for the Mood Sewing Network, The Big Reveal won’t be until May – sorry! I’m such a tease.

Completed: Another Kelly Skirt, In Denim!

Let me just start off by saying I LOVE this Kelly skirt pattern. It’s incredibly simple – 5 pieces, and the skirt sections are nice and rectangular (which is magical when it comes time to make flat pattern alterations, especially to the length). Easy and fun to sew, and super duper flattering. I love it and I want to make its babies.

And I love my denim version – I really really do – but DAMN GIRL we got off to a rough start

I bought this denim at Mood while I was NY (I’m starting to sound like a broken record… sorry! I told you I bought a lot of shit while I was there, deeeal with it haha). While I can’t tell you exactly what it is so you can find some for yourself (although George might, he found it and squirreled it away for me because he is awesome), I can say that it is a lovely light/medium weight, dark dark denim with no stretch. The color is super rich, and it has a nice body without being super heavy and stiff. Also, I bought like 3 yards of it. Expect more denim-wear, aha

So, like I said – this is the Kelly skirt. I made this lil’ dude before in corduroy. I wanted to make this immediately after that silk near-disaster, as something easy and mindless that didn’t require a lot of focus. Plus, my wardrobe was desperately missing a denim skirt, as my faithful denim Ginger is just way too big for me to continue wearing at this point. Kill two birds with one stone? Don’t mind if I do!

Well, I don’t know what I did wrong here, but the making of this skirt was a HOT MESS from practically beginning to end! You can’t tell from the finished skirt, because it’s awesome (and I’m totally tooting my own horn here, dgaf. toot, toot), but there was lots of screaming and cussing during the process. I know, I cuss even when I’m thrilled with how things are going – but I’ve never cussed AT my machine until this. Sorry, Nina :\

My biggest issue was that top stitching thread. My machine was NOT having it, and kept throwing fits at me every time I tried to sew. If you think the topstitching looks good – well, that’s because I ripped out out several times. I had a lot of practice at that point! Good thing denim is forgiving when you hit it with the steam iron, because I had a big ol’ denim needle and everything. The machine just kept flipping it’s shit over the thread – I had to use all-purpose (aka, regular) thread in the bobbin, which caused the tension to freak out in a major way. I probably spent about an hour fussing over the bobbin tension, trying different threads and needles and changing the numbers and… ugh. That was the biggest issue. I was so concerned, I actually asked the Bernina store if my machine was behaving normally or if I needed to take her in for a check-up. General consensus was that the machine was being finicky due to the thread, that these things happen, and next time I should try a topstitching needle (me: oooh, those exist?!).

So, I spent foreeeeever messing with that, and ripping seams and restitching and re-ripping, and finally I had my waistband on – topstitched and everything. I put the skirt around my waist to check the fit. Uhmm… I know my last skirt was a tiny bit big, so I sliced off just the tiniest bit of size for this time… and it was TOO SMALL. Like, a good half-inch smaller than my actual waist measurement. Wtf?! I don’t know what I did, but I must’ve fucked it up somewhere. I also couldn’t let the waistband out at the seam allowances because I’d aggressively clipped the corners for when I turned them out :X

In the end, I unpicked the old one and cut a new waistband. It wasn’t too painful to do – especially with that steam press interfacing fusing masterpiece I now have. YEP. I also ripped out one of the front plackets and sewed it slightly narrower, to give the skirt a little bit of extra room up top.

I also had problems with my button holes. The machine just wasn’t having it… especially when I tried to make them vertical. I ripped out 4 button holes before I just let them be horizontal. I also had problems with top stitching the hem, but I won’t get into that. I can just be an idiot sometimes.

After seam-ripping my button holes open, I don’t really like the way the threads are hanging out there everywhere. So sloppy! Soooo, I bought myself a button hole cutter. FANCY. I can’t wait to use it!

You may notice that I didn’t have enough buttons – the pattern calls for 7, I had 6. I compensated by only putting one on the waistband, and sewing a hook and eye below it so it wouldn’t gape.

The topstitching did turn out nice in the end, after MUCH finagling. Just a little tip – when you’re topstitching, increase the stitch length slightly (for me, I go from 2.5 to 3). It makes for a prettier stitch

And hey, here’s a little surprise – polka dot in the pockets! This is the same Marc Jacobs fabric I used for my Miette wrap skirt.

One last thing – remember when I said I only had 6 buttons for this skirt? Wellllll, I was trying to jump on Landon’s back and unfortunately I broke the bottom button. Haha! I mean, split the shank and everything. So now I only have 5. If the hem stitching looks mis-matched, it’s because I pinned the skirt together at the bottom for the pictures and I didn’t do quite a good job. I promise that shit actually matches… I spent a good 45 minutes futzing with it, you know OH, and in case you were wondering… that is totally an original Stray Cats shirt, and it is totally awesome.

This will be great for Me-Made-May – I LIVED in my denim Ginger last summer. So glad we can finally be reunited, even if it’s a different pattern

Completed: My Easter Outfit

Remember that wool crepe I bought while I was in NYC? Remember how I was afraid it was going to be too winter-y for a climate that’s already rapidly approaching summer weather?

WELL, CHECK THIS SHIT OUT:

I made me a fancy lady flouncy pencil skirt! Totally banking on Carolyn’s reassurance that wool is a lovely fabric to wear during the summer, I decided to test that theory by making it into a skirt. I really wanted a whole ladysuit – or even a dress – but unfortunately, this kind of saturated yellow doesn’t do favors for my coloring. I went with a skirt so there would be plenty of space between my face and the yellow.

I felt pretty silly making a wool pencil skirt just as we’re creeping into 75* days – I mean, I’ve always thought of wool as a winter fabric (and I’d guess that a lot of people feel the same way). The best coats are wool – why would I wear wool in the summer heat? Isn’t that just asking for a sweaty disaster?

So here’s my little wool crepe pencil skirt for spring – in the kind of bright yellow that would almost be embarrassing if it wasn’t so awesome. But sit back down for a spell, there’s a lil’ surprise in the back…

… a circular flounce insert! I call it a party in the back, Landon calls it my tail. Either way, it’s a fun little addition to jazz up an otherwise plain pencil skirt (well, as plain as a *bright yellow* wool crepe pencil skirt can be, I suppose!).

This pattern is Vogue 8317, which I received during a sewing swap (also while I was in New York – thanks, Oona!). Just based on the envelope art, the pattern is a bit dated looking (I originally thought it was from the earlyl 90s, but the copyright date is 2006 wut), but the line art showed promise. I made a 10, although I probably should have done a smaller size as I needed to take in quite a bit at the waist. I also shortened the skirt by about 2″ before cutting into my crepe.

The skirt is fully lined with Bemberg Rayon. I originally wanted a bright yellow like the crepe, but there wasn’t any in the store when I was there (nor was there any white – at least not in rayon!), so I ended up getting a light peach that is very close to my skin tone. Surprisingly, it picks up quite a bit of the hue of the wool and almost looks like the exact yellow I was trying to obtain. Love it when that happens!

I also made my bow-neck blouse, using polka dot cotton batiste (from Mood, of course) and Simplicity 4676, a vintage pattern. The batiste is quite sheer, so I underlined the body with white batiste. I love this stuff – it’s incredibly soft and lightweight, and the black and white pin dots go with EVERYTHING. Seriously. I will probably end up wearing this top all summer, it’s so good!

I made this outfit to wear for Easter dinner with my family, but I can definitely see myself wearing it all throughout summer, as well as pairing up the individual pieces with different tops and bottoms. Oh, and to answer my own question at the beginning of the post- wool crepe gets two thumbs up from me when it comes to summer wear. Just make sure you pair it with a lightweight, breathable lining, and you can wear this amazing fabric year-round.

Do I sound like an advertisement, yet? WOOLCREPEWOOLCREPEWOOLCREPE