The Ottoman Empire

When I was in graduate school I was broke. Completely. Utterly. Disastrously. Broke. I think that is one of the reasons that I learned how to do so many things for myself because, really, if I didn't build it, chances were, I wasn't going to get it.

When I was in grad school I also desperately wanted a kilm-covered ottoman that Pottery Barn was selling for a mere $650.00. I'm not sure why I ever started receiving the Pottery Barn catalog, lord knows I couldn't afford to buy anything from it. But I wanted that ottoman. I wanted it so damned bad I could taste it. Every time a new version of the catalog would come I would immediately search through it looking for that ottoman to make sure it hadn't been discontinued. Because you know, then I could buy it.

Well, I never did buy that ottoman. Mainly because I never found myself with $650.00 just lying around. But, I did find that I still needed a coffee table. Come on, I was a grad student, not a complete heathen. So, I decided that I would MAKE an ottoman, and I would make it for a hell of a lot less than $650.00. Not only did I make it, I made it so sturdy that I still have it 10 years later, recovered for the third time to match the current decor.

Here is my version:

Here is what you need:

1 piece of 3/4 inch plywood, 36 inches by 48 inches. They will cut it at the store for you, you don't need a saw
4 ready-made legs, you can buy these in the same part of the store where you get trim and and parts for stair rails
Sandpaper and stain for the legs. Try to get a 1-step stain and finish in one. It doesn't have to be super-perfect, they're not really going to show that much
4 clinch nut plates
20 1 inch Philips screws
2 yards of upholstery fabric
2 yards quilt batting
Upholstery foam, 6-8 inches thick, measuring 36 inches by 48 inches
Staple gun
Electric drill with Philips head driver

Once you have all your materials assembled, the ottoman is super-easy to assemble. Other than staining the legs, it only takes a few minutes to put together.

The first thing you need to do is sand and finish your legs. When you buy your legs, make sure they already have screws inserted in them. I used a foam brush to apply the stain and polyurethane. I also used water-soluble poly. This makes me a heathen, just ask my father. However, I have now been using this ottoman for 10 years and it has lived through 4 moves, so I think it was just fine.


Next, clear a place on the floor and begin to lay out your materials. Lay out your upholstery fabric (upside down) on the floor. Then top that with your batting. On top of that, center your block of foam. Then, on your foam, place your piece of plywood.

Now starts the fun part, stapling the fabric.

Starting on one side, grasp the center of one side of the fabric and batting and pull it up on top the plywood. Staple. Repeat on the opposite side. Then do on the last two sides until you have four staples in place.

Now start stapling the fabric around the ottoman, tucking in the fabric on the ends like you are wrapping a birthday present.


When you are finished stapling the fabric, lay out your clinch nut plates and using the electric drill, start driving in the screws. The screws are short so there is no reason to drill guide holes. They will go right through the layers of fabric, also. If you don't use the clinch nut plates and just insert the legs directly into the plywood, eventually the holes will strip out and the ottoman will not be strong enough for someone to sit on. Once the clinch nut plates are in place, insert the legs.


The fabric is easily removable and can be changed as your decor changes. Mine currently matches my red and gold living room, but it has been a variety of other colors. Not only was it inexpensive to create, it is easy to completely change the look for just the cost of a new 2 yards of fabric.


Since I finished grad school and have a job, I could totally afford $650.00 for an ottoman, but now I don't even want it. So there, Pottery Barn.

A BIG New Project

A few weeks ago I was visiting at my Grandmother's house, and because I was also intermittently watching my baby nephew while my brother went to a funeral, I took a couple of sewing projects that needed cutting out to work on while the little guy napped.

My 11-year-old niece, Sadie, was there also and the whole time that I was cutting the fabric out she was right there with a million questions, collecting and pocketing the fabric scraps. I finally asked her "Sadie, do you want to learn to sew?" and she very nearly passed out. So, I set aside the cutting, bundled up the munchkin, and we went to the fabric store to pick out a project.

At Hancock's, the Simplicity patterns were on sale for $1.99, so I handed her the catalog and we talked about what an appropriate pattern to start with would be. She is hard to fit, because she is a tall girl, and developing, so the little girl's patterns are too small. But the big girl's patterns are too skanky!! She eventually selected Simplicity 3887, with the waist tie and puff sleeves.


She selected for her fabric a white quilting cotton with red balls and black jacks on it; which I thought might be a touch young for an 11-year-old. NOT that I was going to point that out to her. With the battles (often resulting in tears on both sides of the dressing room door) that I have waged with her over low-rider pants, tummy-baring shirts, and high heels I wouldn't have said anything if she picked a fabric with pink fluffy teddy bears farting hearts and glitter.

Over the past few weeks, we have been spending Sunday afternoons together learning about the sewing machine, and working on her shirt. Last weekend I gave her her own sewing machine (which will live at my house until she can get through a whole pattern on her own). I found for a good price on Craig's List a Singer 403 in a table. Since she is used to using my Singer 401, it is an easy transition for her. Also, these old Singers are built like little tanks and there is very little that she can do to the machine that I can't fix on my own.

Here she is putting her machine through it's paces, really just playing with all the cams and getting used to the foot control:



She was so excited that the machine was "hers." I taught her how to oil it, and we cleaned all the lint out of it. It was a great deal, just $65.00...much less than even the most basic of machines than I would have been able to get her new; and any machine for that price would have been complete garbage.

Since she has continued to be excited about sewing, this week I took advantage of another pattern sale at Hancock's and some clearance fabric to make her a small "stash," so she would be able to work on a few projects.

For just a few dollars a yard, I got her fabric for a jacket, pants, and a knit shirt:


With the knit with the flowers, she can make either the scoop-neck shirt from Simplicity 4076
or the tee from New Look 6735. Using the gray suiting, she can make either short jacket from Simplicity 3565 or the vest from Vogue 8523. She can use the black to make the pants from the Vogue pattern, New Look 6836, or McCalls 5710. All those patterns are now in her "stash" thanks to the sale at Hancock's. She also has some fancy buttons, a few zippers, thread, bobbins, pins, scissors, chalk, and all the things that she needs to get started. I put everything into a big rubbermaid tub that will be "her" sewing kit.

Hopefully when I see her tomorrow she will be happy with it, even though she didn't get to pick out the patterns and the fabric. I also hope that the sewing will help with other areas of her life. Unfortunately, these lessons are one of the things that she gets to do when her mother doesn't pick her up for visitation. She is supposed to see the children every other weekend, but since she is a crack-head, living in a motel, with no transportation, currently on parole for cooking meth, and in arrears for thousands of dollars in child support I am perfectly happy to fill that Sunday with a sewing lesson so she doesn't mope around about her mother not showing up again.

I also hope that these lessons will help Sadie with some of the other challenges in her life. Namely, building some self-esteem. With a mother on parole, who may or may not be actively working as a prostitute and/or a hustler, I am generally horrified at the items that she will give Sadie to wear. I do what I can to counteract this, when I take Sadie shopping for her school clothes, but it is hard to combat when her mother buys her things like thongs. Thongs! For an 11-year-old! And I'm not talking about flip-flop shoes. But, working on patterns does open the door to talk about things like raising necklines and lowering hems and what is appropriate and what is classy and why no one wants to look at the crack of your butt.

She also struggles with reading and comprehension, and I hope that working through pattern instructions and illustrations will help her with that. If she is able to work through these issues with something she is interested in, perhaps that will spill over into her schoolwork.

I also hope that this opens the door to her understanding the importance of learning useful skills for the future. Because her parents are not setting any useful example for her at all. While I love my brother (mainly because I have to, I think it may be the law or something), he is a terrible example for his children. He can't hold a job, and is constantly dumping them on relatives, mostly his mother. So Sadie doesn't have a strong adult role-model; one who can show her that a good work-ethic is important, and that skills are important in making and maintaining a home. Hopefully this will provide her with an alternative to what she has seen.

Her Uncle Ricky, who is a machinist, also pointed out to her that patterns are just like blueprints, except you cut them apart. And if you can run a sewing machine, you can run a mill at the shop...which started the gears turning in her head....

I Won't Let it Beat Me!

McCall 5468, I can't let it defeat me!!

So I tried to make this dress, and let's just say it didn't work out. It may have had something to do with the pattern drafting...it may have had something to do with my "frankendressing" it. I suspect that because I only retraced pattern pieces that already existed in the envelope that the problems had to do with the draft to begin with because:

a. It was drafted for someone much shorter-waisted than I am, because if you look at the drawing and the pattern envelope artwork, the dress clearly hits at the waist. Now, part of this has to do with how large chested I am, but even on the back this dress does NOT hit at my natural waist.

b. The dress, like most "Big 4" patterns, is drafted for A and B cups. It doesn't even have darts, just gathers around the waist. This is part of the reason that the front of the dress is short, because it is pulling to fit over my chest.

I believe that the solution to these problems is two-fold. One, to add a a full-bust adjustment; the second is to lengthen the bodice by two inches, which is pretty standard for me when using Big 4 patterns. I hope that the combination of the two will place the waistband at the natural waist and add the blousing effect that is shown on the pattern image.


To the left you can see the original dress with "waistline" marked.

In the side view you can see how the waistline curves down towards the back.

To add the FBA, I utilized the instructions provided by Debbie Cook on her web page for empire waists, since that was what this one basically started it's life as!

I started with my original pattern piece that I drew by morphing the scoop neck front, with the armscyes from view B:


I then drew in the slash marks indicated by Debbie:


I then cut along those marks and spread the pattern as needed, and used it to redraw a new piece:


Here is the new piece with the completed FBA, with the dart aiming in the appropriate direction, toward the bust point:


But remember, the FBA is only half the fix. I also needed to lengthen the bodice on the front and the back:


You may ask, Michelle, why have you finally succumbed and given in to the FBA, when for so long you have skated along without it? Well, I have finally admitted, even though I did not want to, that I do have...a full bust. I went to Nordstrom's, I was drug into a fitting room by a well-meaning saleswoman who, with the help of a tape measure and many, many, many bras was able to convince me that I was not the 38C (or possibly a D) that I had for so long assumed I was but I am in fact a...are you ready for this? A 34DDD. Now, if I am a C-cup, I can possibly convince myself that I can get by without an FBA but there is no amount of self-delusion that can make a DDD anything but a full bust. I am sure that the only thing that has gotten me by so far is the fact that I am cutting such a large size, since my bust measurement is so much larger than my high bust and my rib cage.

Here the top is already looking better. I'm seriously considering turning the inside and outside waist bands into a foldover band and making a shirt or two like this:


And here is the completed project. I did make a couple additional changes besides the FBA and the lengthening of the bodice. The pattern calls for cutting only two waist ties and then hemming. I cut four instead and then doubled and turned them. I also kept my original raised neckline, and the morphed-on sleeves and armscyes from view B, even though I was using the front from view D.


Look, Ma! No pregnancy bump!! And considering that this is my first FBA, I'm actually pleased that the darts are facing in the right direction:


In the end, I am much, much happier with this version than with the original. I got my "70's dress" even though it was more work than I had anticipated.

Dropped Ceiling Remedy

When I first moved into my house, one of the items that I hoped to remedy was a dropped acoustic panel ceiling in the kitchen. You are familiar with these, I'm sure. If you work in a warehouse. Really, these things have no place in residences. They hold dust and grime, and in kitchens you get the bonus of grease. Which of course helps the dust and grime to adhere to the panels! So, one of my first projects was to get rid of this disaster.

I assumed that I would just pull down the dropped ceiling and then either a) repair whatever it was hiding, or b) clear up the mess and hire someone to come put up a dry wall dropped ceiling. Unfortunately, what I found when I lifted the panels made both of these options impossible. The dropped ceiling was concealing the fact that all the wiring and plumbing for the upstairs was in between the original and dropped ceiling.


Pretty grim, right? But I still wanted to get rid of those 2x4 acoustic panels. They just looked so...industrial. So, I searched for options for dropped ceilings. What I found was American Tin Ceiling. American Tin Ceiling is a company that manufactures both reproduction tin ceilings, the kind you nail up to a 2x4 framework, as well as two easier options: a snap-lock nail up ceiling that will attach directly to drywall, as well as a panel made to replace the acoustic tiles in drop-in ceilings. SCORE! So, I called to place my order.

One of the greatest things about this company's product is that they paint all the panels for you. And not only do they paint them, they use a technique called "powder coating." What that means is the panels are pained like your appliances (refrigerator, washer and dryer), the paint is actually baked on to the panels. Which means, you can remove them and wash them if necessary. A great option, especially for those panels that sit above the stove. In fact, the paint finish is so sturdy, the panels can also be used for back splashes (my next project!).

If you decide to undertake a project like this, make sure that you also buy 2 or more cans of spray paint from the company. They sell paint that matches the panels, because you will need to paint the suspended frame to match the panels.

The first step in this project is to remove the old acoustic panels. But don't throw them away! You are going to use them later.

You then need to turn the 2x4 foot grid into a 2x2 foot grid. You can pick up a snap-in spanner from any hardware store that sells dropped ceiling supplies. Be sure you do your homework and compare prices, though. I got my spanners for 32 cents at Lowe's, but Home Despot was asking 1.23. That is four times as much! Snap the spanners into the frame.


When you reach the edges, you will need to cut the spanners if your ceiling does not end evenly. I used tin snips, although my dad pointed out that I had three hacksaws in the basement (at least two of which I pilfered from his tool bench). He also added that sometimes he suspected that I was a little 'tarded. I thought he could have left that last part off.

Once you have your spanners up, you can begin dropping the tin panels in. You will probably notice that once you replace those squishy acoustic panels with tin, that it gets a little echo-y in the room. This is where those old panels come in. Break them in half and tuck them into the ceiling on top of the tin panels. This will help the panels not only lie flat, but also muffle some of the sound.


When you get to the edges, you will have to trim your panels as well. I used just plain tin snips, and ended up with the blister to prove it. American Tin Ceiling sells cutters, and if I ever do a project like this, I will go ahead and spend the money and get it. Mainly because not only did I get a blister, the snips also bend the panels a bit as you cut and you may have to tap them back flat with a rubber mallet. Now if you have a family like mine, your uncle that owns a metal fabricating shop will take one look at your lovely finished ceiling and say "You cut these panels by hand?? I think your dad might be right. You are a little 'tarded. You could have brought them to the shop and I would have cut them on the shear for you! It would have taken 15 seconds! Dummy."


I decided that I also wanted to add crown molding, since the elaborate ceiling seemed to "need something." For this you will need help. Mainly because you need about six hands to hold the lengths of molding while someone nails it. Fortunately, my dad and uncle took pity on their mildly 'tarded relative and offered to help.


One thing that is often difficult if you don't have a lot of expensive equipment is mitering the edges of the molding so it meets cleanly.


Even with the equipment, it's still not that easy. Fortunately, there are ways to get around this. You can add something called "corner blocks." If you have a perfectly square room, all you will need are 4 "inside corner" blocks. I, on the other hand, had both inside and outside corners. You simply nail these up over the corners, then you can cut the end of the molding perfectly flat to meet with the block, rather than trying to miter the corners. Keep in mind that your other uncle who is a contractor and restores old houses will most likely ridicule you and your father for your inability to miter edges, and imply that your 'tardedness may have been passed along the paternal line.


Final step, patch your nail holes and run a bead of paintable caulk along the bottom of the molding to fill the seam between the molding and the wall. Now you are ready to paint! Here is the finished product:

Also, if there is any advice that I can give regarding painting, it is do not be afraid of dark colors in small rooms. In the kitchen, the hot-white of the ceiling helps open up the space, even though the walls are actually much darker than they appear in the photos.


The single color of the walls, trim and baseboards also helps disguise the fact that over the years this kitchen has been plastered, paneled, and g0d-knows-what else to disguise some seriously damaged walls. By going "mono-chromatic" it helps smooth out all those varied surfaces, and class up the joint a bit.

Oh, and that big painting of the wine bottle? 5 bucks at Garden Ridge.

Fixing the Stupid

This is my house:


I bought my house in 2004 intending to renovate it. Unfortunately, a lot of the renovations have been put off in favor of major, if not cosmetic, projects. Since I have moved in, the plumbing stack has been replaced, necessitating the rebuilding of a bathroom wall; we have completely reconstructed the structural support of the front porch; my brother and I installed the privacy fence; new windows were put in the dining room; and a new roof and gutters were put on. As you can see from the photo above, the second floor of my house is essentially a series of dormers, and with all those peaks, that roof was NOT cheap to put on.

Since restoration has been tabled in favor of reconstruction, a lot of what I have done to the interior of the house has been temporary fixes rather than the final restoration that I would like to do. The house was built in 1920, and still has the original butler's pantry, woodwork (although it has been painted), and even some of the original windows. Because of this, I would like to be "true" to the era of the house in the renovation that I do, and not just replace everything with white tile and stainless steel. (The couple that live around the corner from me even restored their house's summer kitchen...a little brick building connected to the back of the house by a breezeway. I love them and hate them for their perfection all at the same time. Their house is fantastic. They even sanded and restored the original swing-out storm windows.)

But, over the last 88 years of this home's life, not every owner has had the same attitude about conservation that I do, and a lot of what I have had to do in the house is what I like to think of as "Fixing the Stupid."

One of the stupidest things in the house is the way that the upstairs bathroom was built. I know that it was added sometime after 1960, because I have met the daughter of the family that owned the house before that time, and there was no upstairs bath. Apparently, the front porch also extended all the way around the corner of the house, and met the back porch, making a huge veranda, and some numbskull decided it would be a FANTASTIC idea to just rip that the hell off. If I ever meet the person that did that, I'm going to hit them with a hammer. The claw side.

But, the level of stupidity involved in deciding to tear 3/4 of a beautiful porch off the house is similar in scale to the stupidity involved in building the upstairs bathroom, so I suspect it was the same person.

Because the upstairs is essentially an over-sized attic (even though I do actually have an attic, that I can crawl into through a tiny hole in my bedroom ceiling), many of the walls are sloped, including one of the bathroom walls. One of the four bathroom walls. But apparently, the person who put the bathroom up there thought that it would be a fantastic idea to put the bathtub under the sloped part of the wall.

This means that if you are anything over 4 feet tall, you constantly thwack your head on the wall reaching for the shampoo.

Oh, and this is what the shower curtain rod looked like when I moved in:


Now, eventually this entire bathroom is going to get torn up and the bathtub is going to be moved to the other end of the room, where the ceiling is not sloped, and you would have to be 9 feet tall to hit your head on it. Instead, the toilet will go under the highest part of the peak, and the sloped part will be enclosed to become a linen closet, so I didn't want to do anything drastic in fixing the bathroom, but that curtain HAD to be fixed, because clearly a man had come up with this set-up. I can almost hear the train of thought "It's ok that the shower curtain only extends half way down the tub, I'll just stand so my body blocks the water from the shower...the floor will only get slightly wet that way..."

Well, an only slightly wet floor was not ok with me, and I needed a shower curtain that fully blocked the spray of the water. After racking my brain trying to figure out how to create a sloped shower rod...sewing a curtain to fit....how would I keep it from sliding....I came up with a simple solution.

Forget trying to alter a shower rod and curtain, just find a way to hang a standard one. I just needed a "stop" for the other end. But how to make that something attractive and not just some chunk of 2x4 screwed into the wall?


Easy enough...I went to the hardware store and in the trim aisle found a variety of bits and pieces of trim for windows, doors, stairs, just about anything your could imagine. I just played around stacking different pieces on top of one another until I came up with something that I liked. This is two pieces of trim, both ready-made and readily available in any big lumber store. The bottom piece is floorboard (attached upside down), and the top piece is a piece of door and window trim.


I painted both white with leftovers from the wall/bathroom repair downstairs. I then used some liquid nails and two screws to attach the larger piece to the wall. I used another spot of liquid nails and four finish nails to attach the square piece to hide the screws. I used a nail-set drive the finish nails below the surface level of the wood, then four dots of spackle and some touch-up paint and....voila:


A shower curtain that extends the full extent of the bathtub. Problem solved. The stupid has been fixed. And this will more than suffice until the bathroom can be fully remodelled and the bathtub relocated.

The Ugly-Suit

So my neice...

Every now and then, when she visits, she likes to "shop the stash." Normally, that is fine with me. I give her the box where I keep the remnants from other projects and she just plays for a while.

But not this time. This time she managed to drag out from the pile of knits the UGLIEST FABRIC IN THE ENTIRE WORLD and announce "This! This, Aunt Missy! I want you to make me something out of this! As my grandmother would say, "That kid...all her taste is in her mouth."

I don't even know where the fabric came from. I think that some company I order fabric from must have put it in a shipment just to get rid of it, knowing full-well that I wouldn't spend the money to send it back ;). The photos truly do not do it justice because not only is it turquoise AND leopard print, it is also COVERED with gold glitter. I had to wash it three times before the glitter stopped coming off on everything it touched. Amazingly, I had a turquoise knit that I had picked up on the bargain table at Hancock's intending to use it for muslins, but it just so happened that it perfectly matched the turquoise in the leopard print monstrosity. It's also shiny, so she adored it on sight.

So, I decided to make for her New Look 6762. She is stuck between girls sizes and misses' sizes, so she is a little tough to fit. Her measurements are 32-28-35. Based on the pattern sizing, it indicates an XS in the shirt and an S in the pants. However, the finished garment measurments indicate that there is zero ease in the shirt, and only about one inch of ease in the pant at the hips. Since the quickest route to "Prosti-Tot" would be to sew a skin-tight, sparkly, leopard-print shirt for my 11-year-old neice, I opted for sewing both items one size larger than indicated. In fact, with the stretch in both the shirt and the pants, I can actually get into them. NOT that I would take any photos of THAT...but hopefully that means that they won't be too revealing on a little girl. I also changed the sleeve length to 3/4 sleeves, since it is the dead of winter, so no reason to make short-sleeve t-shirts.

In the process of constructing the shirts, I found two issues: one, the shoulder darts make pointy little shoulders. Not that Sadie cares. she's 11. And she wears sparkly turquoise leopard print shirts. Pointy shoulders aren't even on her radar! However, if I ever make one for myself, I'll be redrafting the sleeves to remove the dart. The second issue is that the notches on the neckband don't properly correspond to the notches on the neckline of the shirt. So just ignore them. I attached the neckband by quartering it and easing it the way I would any other t-shirt binding. The pants went together with no problems at all.


Overall, I'm very pleased with the way the shirt and pants turned out. I initially bought the pattern as a way to use up knit "leftovers" and the shirt certainly fills that bill nicely! I even made a second version of the shirt with some leftovers from the pants and a shirt I made earlier this year.

After completing the outfit, I folded it up and took the outfit over to my Aunt's house where we were all meeitng for a big family dinner. When I got there, I took Sadie into the bathroom to try the outfit on and the pants were WAAAY too long, which was frustrating, because I had called my mother on the Thursday beforeand asked her to measure Sadie's inseam for me.

On Thursday night my mother calls me and says "Her inseam is 34 inches." I told her "That can't be right, Mom. 34 inches is Jeremy's inseam. That's a MAN's inseam." So my mother gets frustrated and argues with me and says "Well, I measured it twice, and that is her inseam, and she's very tall, so there."

I assumed, OK, she misundersood..she didn't measure her inseam...she measured the outside of her leg, from the waist. So rather than argue with my mother anymore, I just measured 34 inches down the outside of the leg, and hemmed the pants.

Well, needless to say, that was totally wrong, and the pants were too long.

When Sadie was trying them on, I called my mother into the bathroom and said "Mom, Sadie's inseam is NOT 34 inches...point to me where you measured her inseam from!" She points to where Sadie's legs meet, which of course is correct.

I look at my mother and said "You measured from the wrong end of the measuring tape, didn't you?"

She just looks at me and says "You want a glass of wine?"

So, the next day I had a chance to get the pants hemmed...to the proper length this time...and took them over to my grandmother's house, where Sadie and y nephew were visiting.

I was finally able to get a couple photos of Sadie in her outfit. She loved it, and had to, of course, wear it for the rest of the day.

McCall 5468 and New Look 6648

This past weekend, I completed two projects, McCall 5468 and New Look 6648. Both were fairly heavily altered from their original states.

First, McCall 5468. This was a new pattern for me.


I was originally attracted to the sort of glam retro vibe the pattern had going on, but ended up doing the "franken-dress" thing because I wasn't entireley happy with either version of it. I liked the sleeves and skirt length of view A:


But didn't want the cross-over front, mainly because I already had so many wrap dresses, and this really didn't set it apart from those wrap dresses. Instead, I wanted a scoop neckline, but the scoop neck had these odd batty sleeves, with armscyes that went almost all the way to the waistline. I would feel like a flying squirrel in that!!

So, I redrafted the front of the dress by tracing the sides and armscyes of view A, and the neckline of view D. Also, after reading the reviews of the dress on PR, I decided to raise the neckline and add a binding, since most of the other reviewers had had issues with the depth of the scoop neck. The pattern instructions also had the neckline constructed with a simple hem, with I felt really didn't give a very finished look. Hence, the binding.


I also left off the back tie because I felt it looked a little too twee for a 36-year-old. Now, if I were 35, maybe....but really, what adult woman wants a dress with a bow above her butt? Nothing against those of you who may want that, but I am nothing if not opinionated. Plus, I made it, so I can leave off anything I want. To make up for the fact that I left off the back tie, I cut the waist band smaller than the pattern indicated.

In fact, I cut the whole pattern smaller than indicated. It was hard to decide what size to sew because there is so much ease in the pattern. According to my measurements, I am exactly inbetween a 16 an an 18, so I normally cut a 16 because the "Big 4" run just that...BIG. But, according to the pattern, the finished garment measurements were 44 inches at the bustline for a 16, and that is just too much ease in my opinion for a knit, so I cut a 14. The dress is still large, the shoulders are wider than they should be, you can see in the photo above that the shoulder seams droop off the dress form. If I make it again, I will get the other pattern envelope and use the 12, and make an attempt at an full bust adjustment and also lengthen the bodice. It's not quite short enough to be an empire waist, and not quite long enough to hit at the natural waist.

I also changed how the skirt was gathered. After my "how many months are you?" experience with my last gathered skirt (Simplicity 3678) I shifted the bulk of the gathering away from the center of the skirt.


It did not result in the front being entirely flat, but much better than previous attempts. I think that if I make the dress again, lengthen the bodice, and make the waist smaller yet, that it will look much better.


Overall, I am not as "wowed" by the dress on, as I was by the concept of the dress. I like it better on other people. But that in part may be my own fault and the fact that I cobbled together different pieces, drafted a new neckline, added a binding, moved the gathers, left off pieces, possibly used the wrong size....

But I think that the main issue is that I am a bit bottom-heavy and the gathered skirt does nothing to help mask that, where an a-line or gored skirt, as Clinton and Stacy would say, skims the body and hides any multitude of sins. I have made other dresses that really do flatter much more than this one. Although after reading the positive comments on PR, I may have to rethink...perhaps I just know how I WANT it to look, and to those people who aren't party to the "image in my head," the dress is perfectly fine!!


When I think about it and really dissect what initially attracted me to the dress, it was the sleeves with the gathered wrists. And I can draft those sleeves onto any number of other dresses that I have found that work better for my body. So, when you see a review for Vogue 8379 with long sleeves gathered at the wrist, you will know that I have been slicing and dicing patterns!!


The second project that I finished over the weekend was New Look 6648. I have made this pattern before, and I quite like it. It is a great shirt with simple lines that is perfect for "over the top" fabrics, because there is no aspect of the shirt itself that competes for attention. It is just a simple top with kimono sleeves and a shirred waist.


However, there is one issue that is bothersome. As drafted, the neckline is huge, and you are constantly tucking away bra straps. Here is the original version. You can see how broad the neckline is:


Here is my new version, in a wild leopard print that I couldn't pass up at Hancock's:


I made the neckline smaller...I would say that I redrafted it, but that would be doing the word "redrafting" a disservice. I freehanded it while I was cutting the pattern out. Fortunately I didn't gank it up too bad. I used the existing pattern for the neckline binding , but just cut it shorter. I also did not use their instructions for attaching it, but folded it in half, and sewed it on like a standard binding.


The only downside to the shirt is that even with the new neckline, you still have to wear a cami underneath, because you can see straight in the arms if you raise them. The sleeves are huge! But, the shirt is super-comfy, and like wearing your pajamas.


It also only takes about an hour to cut out and sew...really! It is so simple you won't believe it! Two seams, hem the sleeves, add the neck binding, and the waist and you are done!