Three grouses and three dresses

Grouse #1

Today I baked The Great Wall of Pita. This meant that the oven was baking away at 425 for a big chunk of the day.

Grouse #2

Our dryer was on the fritz  for over a week and finally got fixed on Thursday. Today our washing machine stopped working mid load.

Grouse #3

My sister did the lions share ( more than a lion’s share-- a lion pride’s share) of clearing out my mother’s apartment. We were left with a large amount of art that needs to be sold. I told my sister that I would take care of it.

 

Sunday evening it all arrived at my house. I felt so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of it that I was sort of immobilized by it yesterday and got basically nothing done all day. Today I hid some of it away , and will hide more away this evening, so at least the dining room table is clear.   (If any of you have any connections to art dealers who deal with Jewish and Israeli art, let me know)

OK. That’s enough grousing for the moment.  I do want to share three dresses that I have made over the last couple of weeks.

Dress #1

I think I had begun this dress two summers ago. I decided to make a one seamed dress out of Ikea fabric. I had gotten what had felt like hopelessly stuck over installing the giant plastic zipper in the back seam so let the dress lie fallow.

At the moment my problems with the dress had seemed insurmountable. Looking at the dress two years later I was able to address them well enough to complete the dress.

 

I know the dress is wrinkled. ( There is a forum out there for criticizing sewing blogs and they often gripe when people show wrinkled garments and at as if they are fine. This dress is wrinkled, I know.) The fit on this dress is a bit wonky on me. The hips are cut a bit snug on my hips.

 

Below is essentially my cutting diagram for the dress.

Aside from the shoulder seam, the only seam is the center back seam. I cut fish eye darts at the sides to create some waist shaping. The dress reminds me of childhood summers.

Dress #2

This dress was stupidly easy to make. This is the basic shape.

The best thing about it is the fabric.

It’s a cool cotton/nylon woven. The dress shape reminds me of something you might see in a “Simple to Sew” article from the 1970’s. It’s dreadful without the belt, so it won’t be worn without one, ever.

Dress #3

 

This dress is also all about the fabric.  The green lace was a super bargain purchase from Fabric Mart during one of their sales on lace.

I had made the basic dress and had dithered on the lining fabric. I was thinking that I wanted to line the dress in a dark color. I wimped out and went for the expected.

It’s lined with a white puckered knit that I fell stupidly in love with at Paron.

I had initially made the lining a bit too short so I added an extension today.  I know the seam is less than lovely, but I don’t think it will be visible through the heavy lace.

The diagram for this dress looks like this.

It’s a tank style dress with big triangular godets added to the waist for movement and shape. the lining is fitted throughout and does not have the godets. The lining is attached only at the neckline and the armholes.

 

When I wore this dress to synagogue a couple of weeks ago a couple of people came up to me to tell me that there was no way I could have made this dress.

 

Hopefully I will soon get all of the art sold.