Sewing Machine Dress

It has taken me FOREVER to complete this dress.

 

Aaaaand the photos I took today are all blown out, edited as best as I could. I think something is wrong with my camera. It looks perfectly exposed on the screen but really bright when I get it onto the computer. Such is life. 

 But I couldn't resist snatching up this print! It's technically a quilting fabric from Joann's... which is also why it wrinkles so damn fast. I love novelty prints and cotton wovens but I think from here on out, I will be designing my own prints for the most part. 

This will allow Manic Pop to be more cohesive as well as me always being able to order more print of a fabric depending upon what I make. I think it will work out in the long run!

 

Funnily enough, halfway through sewing this I had to take my Huskystar 224 into the shop for repairs. I've had it for about 9 years myself (its about 11 or 12) and never have ever had it serviced. Whoops. The lady at the sewing machine shop didn't seem to think it was all that big of a deal though. 

My machine is a bit of a workhorse and they even told me that I should never oil the one I have myself. So.... done! Tell me not to mess with it, and I won't! I had a damaged spring on the inside of my bobbin case (which is all internal on mine) so no wonder it was making so much noise and scraping against the bobbin plate while sewing. 

This dress is actually the same exact pattern I used for my 1969 Shirtdress.

That's another reason why I thought this took way too long - about 4 weeks from when I was cutting to completion. The only thing I did extra was make armhole facings and attach a band at the bottom. 

I guess it doesn't help that I was fighting with my machine, then finishing it on an entirely different one, plus my hours at work have been a little out of hand. I can be at work anywhere from 8am to about 10pm and with holiday season it could be anywhere up to midnight or in some cases.....2am I have been told. Yikes. 

So I've mostly been sleeping or chilling at home. 

 

I have been having lots of fun playing with prints. If you have been checking on my Instagram, I just made a psychedelic mushroom pattern repeat which you can buy on Spoonflower.com yourself! I made 3 different colors of it and am soon making a jumper-dress out of it. 

 I *might* do Burda's Retro Dress out of it, and I might just make my own pattern. I haven't decided yet. Here is a mock up with their flat sketch.

And the pattern repeat I designed. 

These mushrooms are hand-drawn then imported into Photoshop at 600 dpi. Sounds excessive, but it worked. I haven't really played with prints since college but I'm really having fun with them again. I used this tutorial to jog my memory of creating a pattern repeat. Like I do with any "recipe" I never follow anything exactly, but I got the results I wanted the way I wanted to personally do it. 

 And there is my repeat in person! Image via Instagram. 

Lots of fun things to do, so little time. We'll see how it all goes. I have lots of exciting things on the backburner. 

See you soon!