Manic Pop

I'm back with a new dress!  Like I said, I have been super lazy and using commercial patterns for about a year now. This one is a shirtdress by Simplicity -- pattern number 8014. I did a mix of multiple views to create my perfect shirtdress. I technically cut a View C but used the collar in View A and D. I think I made my cuffed sleeve and sleeve tabs differently than the pattern asked me to do, but I do what I want. Haha.  Best of all, this dress already had a pocket bag pattern! Many times, I will create my own if there is enough room in the skirt portion. I also had to change the grainline of the yoke on my pattern (ie. cut it the opposite direction). Normally, you would cut your back yoke on a shirt or shirtdress on a crosswise grain because it prevents stretching out and gives your garment more stiffness/structure.  Well, that simply wasn't going to work with a one-way print! I would never hear the end of how I "cut it wrong" by anyone wh...

I'm at a total loss with how to present my second version of Simplicity 6299 so here goes nothing.... Yep! I'm back to bad Photoshopping. Haha. With the holiday season being around, being a retail manager, and winter in Chicago (though it hasn't been bad at all) it makes it nearly impossible to take photos of things I have made recently. So I resorted to taking photos against a blank wall and creating... this. It's actually apparently a sketch of Chicago somewhere but I just liked the linework of it. I need to develop my perspective drawing skills. Some of you may remember me posting this sketch deciding between 1 and 2 on my Instagram and clearly, I decided on version 1. It was a hard decision though! (And don't ask me why the sketch is more yellow versus orange, I can't figure it out either.) One thing I've been failing to do is show photos of things on my dressform. I don't know why I don't do that, aside from the fact that I'm ...

I'm back with a new dress that I made! Funny story: This is a dress that almost wasn't. I was cruising around the fabric store one day just picking up some invisible zippers (my go-to rarely has a large selection of invisible zippers) and both my boyfriend and I happened to find this pattern on sale at the store. I really love that pattern companies are reissuing old designs of theirs and Simplicity has always been one of my favorite pattern companies. Here's the 60s version of the pattern packet from 1969. I almost didn't buy the pattern as I didn't really have any plans for it: I'm the weirdo that doesn't buy fabric or patterns without a specific plan. This is probably because my mom spent hundreds of dollars on projects she never even started and fabric she never used when I was a kid. I personally don't want to have a collection of "someday" things cluttering my sewing space. I bought the pattern anyway and I remember thi...