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Come Sew with Me in NYC!!! (+MMM’14 Week 4 Round-Up)

Ok, I can’t keep this news a secret any longer- I’m coming to NYC in August!

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE-

I’m actually going to be teaching a class at Workroom Social while I’m there! Yay!! This is something Jennifer and I have been in cahoots about since I visited in March, and we finally settled on a good date and I bought my plane ticket! To say I’m excited is an understatement (although I reckon my overuse of exclamation points probably hinted at something, haha) – I love NYC, I love sewing, I love teaching, and I love helping people get all excited about sewing! So! Let’s sew together, yeah?

I guess I should give you some class details! I’m running Jennifer’s Weekend Pants-Making Intensive on August 16-17 (Saturday and Sunday). Yep, we are gonna make PANTS (or shorts… you know, whatever floats yer boat) – and they are gonna be awesome! Y’all know how much I love a good trouser pattern, and how geekily excited I get about pants-fitting and pants-making-techniques, so I’m REALLY excited to have an excuse to share this loveee in Brooklyn!

If you haven’t taken a class at Workroom Social, you are in for a treat. All of Jennifer’s sewing intensives are stocked with pre-made muslins in all the pattern’s sizes. You start by trying on a sample to determine sizing and adjustments needed, then we go into full-on pants-making-mode over the 2 day class. The class includes the pattern (a classic trouser pattern with a front fly), use of the equipment and tools, ME, and plenty of food. Seriously. Coffee in the morning, catered lunch, snacks and oh, did I mention there’s a cocktail hour at the end of both nights? Yeah. There’s a cocktail hour at the end of both nights (just in case you didn’t hear me the first time!). So basically, we are gonna get our sew on, get to hang out, and then you go home with the knowledge and skills to make all the pants and shorts that your heart desires (and probably end up with a completed pair by the end of class!). Arghhh so awesome!

If you are interested in taking the class (which you SHOULD be, because I am so so excited to teach it!!), you can read more about it and sign up here. I think this is a pretty cool opportunity for both locals and out-of-towners, since it’s two days over the weekend. Jennifer has lots of resources if you need help finding a place to stay (assuming you’re coming from out of town), so feel free to holler at her if you have questions! Also, I just booked my plane ticket and it was under $250 round-trip for those dates, so… yeah. Class spots are super limited, so sign up early!

I will actually be in NYC from 8/14-8/18, so if anyone wants to get and/or get our shop on while I’m on town, holler! I’ll mention it again when we get closer to the date 🙂

Ok, done selling y’all (for now, ha!). Let’s dive into this week’s Me Made May round-up:

5/17, Saturday
Top: Banana Republic
Pants: McCall’s 6440
Brooch: Nashville Flea Market
Shoes: Mix No.6

Another dumb cold day, another excuse to bust out these sweet pants. Ha! I love these so much, but I have a hard time finding a top that I like with them (especially color-wise). This particular top is nothing special – it’s originally from Banana Republic; I thrifted it a couple of years ago with the intention of using it as a pattern (it’s actually very similar to the Moneta sweater hack), because I hated the fabric but loved the shape. Obviously that never happened, but it’s got me inspired!

5/18, Sunday
Top: Megan Nielsen Briar
Skirt: Self-drafted circle skirt
Cardigan: Peacock Eyes
Belt: Thrifted
Necklace: Gift
Shoes: Franco Sarto

As I’ve said a few times, I’m kind of over circle skirts these days. I tried to pull this one out and make it work – I think it turned out pretty cute, but I do wish there was less skirt involved! Ha! I also tried to mix up how I wear this skirt – I usually just pair it with a mint top (the Pavlova I made to go with it is currently residing in the big scrapbag in the sky… bad fabric choice on my part 😦 ), but I wanted to try a little print-mixing. I do like how the floral looks with stripes, however, I think this Briar may be heading to the same big scrapbag in the sky. You can’t tell in this photo because of my cardigan, but it’s just tooo big all over. Lots of weird wrinkles at the armpit, ugh.

I do love that cardigan, though. So so much ♥

5/19, Monday
Dress: Colette Hawthorn
Belt: Thrifted
Shoes: Fergalicious

It was about this point that I realized I wasn’t even wearing my favorite handmades this month! I’ve been “saving” them for… well, I don’t know what, but it’s dumb and I should wear my favorite clothes! That’s why I made them! So, cherry Hawthorn (I love this pattern, and I have plans for more that should be put into action asap) + favorite Ferg shoes = awesome outfit.

5/20, Tuesday
Dress: Vintage Vogue 1610
Shoes: Jessica Simpson

See what I mean?? How have I not busted out the silk jersey until just now??? Ok, well, I fixed it 😛

5/21, Wednesday
Dress: Handmade (will blog soon :))
Shoes: Nine West

And here’s me, on my birthday, in my birthday dress! 😀 This is a new me-made (I finished it with a couple of days to spare!) and I have no post about it… yet. Soon! What I will tell you is that the bodice pattern is Vogue 8664, and the fabric is stretch cotton sateen. Other than that, you’ll have to wait for the post 🙂

Also, thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes! I was basically bombarded all day with love (including a birthday tweet from Vogue patterns, hah!! YES!!) and it was pretty awesome 🙂 I had a great birthday, too – ate a bunch of amazing food (including a fried green tomato BLT because YES I DID), hung out with my BFF, and oh, wore a pretty awesome dress 🙂 Yay for bithdays!

5/22, Thursday
Shirt: Express
Skirt: Sewaholic Hollyburn
Necklace: Me-Made
Belt: Thrifted
Shoes: Born (yeah, you can’t see them but just so you know… I’m wearing shoes :P)

Finally got to wear this Hollyburn! Yay! I need to make more tops to go with it because it’s kind of difficult to color match (hence why it hasn’t gotten wear yet!), but maybe I can make some of those Moneta tops 🙂 Ha! I wore this all day at work, and then afterwards to celebrate my birthday a second time with Landon (he had to work on my proper birthday, oh well!). And by celebrate I mean we got hot chicken. Yum 🙂

A few people asked if this was my sewing studio… the answer is I WISH. Haha! It’s definitely not my sewing space (I’m still sewing at home, which I have no intentions of changing anytime soon!); it’s Elizabeth’s sewing studio. It’s just as lovely as it looks in the photo – if not more. Lots of gorgeous natural light and pretty things to look at. Also, that machine I’m standing by is my main man Turbo and it’s fucking amazing. It backtacks and clips the thread and you do it all from the pedal so it’s totally hands-free. Seriously amazing, like to the point where I’m debating with myself whether an industrial machine is a good thing to buy right now hahaha. Because I want one! BTW, Elizabeth is still looking for part-time seamstresses sooo if you wanna experience the love of all that is Turbo, holler at her!

5/23, Friday (today!)
Dress: By Hand London Flora
Belt: Thrifted
Shoes: Sam Edelman

And here we are today! I’m working from home, so naturally I had to dress up like a princess 🙂 I love the Flora – thinking about channeling my inner Heather Lou and making a skirt with the pattern, because it’s SO much fun to wear. Seriously, every time I look at this dress in my closet I think, “naw, too fancy for today,” but then I actually put it on and it’s like, “idgaf I feel like a pretty pretty princess, whee!” haha. Anyone else feel that way with their me-mades? Man, I should dress up more.

That’s it for this week! FYI, the blog will probably be pretty quiet next week – because we’re going on vacation! Yeah!! Bout to take our annual trip to Santa Rosa Beach, FL, where I plan on spending the entire time laying on a towel, drinking beer and wearing my giant straw hat. I’ll still be updating my Twitter and Instagram for Me Made May, so follow along if you’re so inclined! I have a couple makes I’ve been saving specifically for this trip… including two bathing suits. Ooh la la! 😉

As a side note for those of you who are participating in My & Andi’s OAL, I was recently made aware that the sewing pattern we’ll be using is going to be on sale this weekend at Joanns! Definitely check your sales flyer to be sure (as it may differ for your state), but Simplicity patterns here will be 5 for $5 over Memorial Day weekend 🙂 Woohoo! Great time to stock up if you’ve been on the fence 🙂 And speaking of the OAL… I’m so so excited to kick this off. I bought my yarn last week, and while it was a liiiittle more than I planned on spending, it was totally worth it. It’s neon yellow and it swatched up so beautifully.

Ok, have a great weekend, everyone! 🙂

Tags: 6440, briar, By Hand London, circle skirt, colette patterns, completed, cotton sateen, dress, DVF, Flora, hawthorn, hollyburn, knitting, mccall, Me Made May '14, MMM14, NYC, OAL2014, pants, Peacock Eyes, sewaholic, silk jersey, skirt, teaching, Thurlow, top, vogue, vogue 1610, workroom social

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Categories Me Made May

Completed: The Flora Dress

5 Mar

Here’s a lovely, floaty warm-weather dress, just in time for another massive cold front! Ha! 🙂

Haha! In all seriousness, let’s welcome the newest member of the By Hand London family – Miss Flora!

Flora is a lovely dress with two bodice options and pleated circle skirt with a straight or hi-lo hem (or, as I like to call it, mullet-hem). I’ve dubbed this a floaty warm-weather dress because that’s specifically what my version is made for, but I imagine this could make a pretty sweet cold-weather dress, too, sewn up in the right fabric (preferably with some kind of crazy awesome contrast lining in the skirt, so it peeks out behind your legs and ooooh!).

My version is the the dipped hem skirt with mock wrap bodice. Man, I love me a good wrap bodice, mock or not.

I did have to make a few changes to get a good fit on the pattern, but nothing that runs outside my ordinary alterations. Let’s get them all out in a pretty list. I started with the size 2/6:
– 3/8″ rounded back adjustment + 5/8″ darts at the upper back
– Lowered the shoulder seams 1″ – also lowered the vertical waist darts 1″ (I also should have lowered those horizontal bust darts too, looking at all the wrinkles on mah side boobs. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20 blah blah)
– 3/8″ tuck out of the front neckline to keep it from gaping

The rounded back adjustment is a new thing for me – I’ve noticed on a lot of my old handmades, there is a weird gaping at the upper back, right under the nape of my neck. It looks STUPID AS SHIT. Apparently I have a ~rounded upper back~ or a Dowager’s Hump, which yes, sounds even worse. I am pretty certain this is in relation to a change in posture, which means I need to start doing yoga or something. Lord.

You know what, though? My upper back no longer has ANY gaping, at least not in this dress! Fuck yeah!

The rest of the dress came together without any additional alterations – even the skirt length is as-printed on the pattern. I know some people really hate this type of hem – that was me, for a long time, and still to some extent (on the really bad ones, YOU KNOW WHICH ONES I’M TALKING ABOUT), but I reeeeally love it on this dress. Combined with the circle skirt, it kind of makes me feel like a princess, without feeling like I look over-the-top. Does that make sense?

It should be noted that, since the back side of the fabric show behind your legs due to the hem line, you probably want to make sure that it doesn’t look totally hiddy. My fabric isn’t super gorgeous on the wrong side, but it’s passable. It looks fine.

Check out that hem sweep! Woohoo!!

I finished the skirt seams with a simple french seam – I think that just looks prettiest on exposed seams like the backside of a mullet skirt. The hem is just a tiny rolled hem, but wouldn’t it be pretty with a strip of lace so it show on the back? Yes, yes it would. Just be forwarned that this hem is looooong and goes on into forever, so if you handsew… you’ll be handsewing into forever, too.

Same with my Georgia dress, I stabilized the neck edges with twill tape to keep it from gaping. I really cannot recommend this step enough when it comes to necklines that have a tendency to droop and gape open – it pulls everything slightly in, and keeps it secure. I can move around all I want and there is no gaping! Yes!

At this point, I kind of feel like it’s my personal life mission to eliminate the gape.

This cotton voile fabric is equal parts weird and amazing, isn’t it? I picked it up from Mood Fabrics with this dress specifically in mind (I also grabbed this navy linen with View A in mind, but floaty won out. And now, the more I look at it, the more that linen might want to be a skirt. Thoughts?).

The Flora was designed to be made up in most any fabric (check out the other versions on the BHL blog if you don’t believe me… as a side note, MAN I am jealous of that cleavage! Dang! Haha!), so I chose to go on the lighter side – lightweight, floaty, almost see-through, you know the drill. What’s interesting about this fabric is that it has all the qualities on voile, with an extra kick of giant embroidered dots scattered everywhere. The dots are slightly thicker than the voile (not, super duper thick like you’d think when you think embroidery… more like the equivalent of a couple extra layers of the voile in thickness), but they don’t affect the drape of this fabric. Also, they’re cotton, so they didn’t do anything crazy when I hit them with my iron. Win!

One more shot of the upper back, bc I’m so proud of myself 🙂 Just a note – in most of these pictures, I’m wearing a strapless bra with my dress. You can see my black bra strap in this picture; that’s cos this came from the set I snapped and sent to BHL after I tested the pattern (just… be thankful I retook them, that’s all I have to say about that!). Anyway, my point is, the straps of the dress are not bra-friendly without a little bit of tweaking. You’ll either need to make bra strap carriers to hold the straps in, or go strapless.

I underlined my bodice in a lightweight cotton batiste, so the inside feels soft and breatheable and delicious. Also, no slippery lining fabric, yay!

And, of course, there’s a hot pink zip in there because why not?

Can’t wait for it to warm up out here so I can wear this bad boy out and about. I’m SO dying to get out of the house and just spend a day lounging around the park on a blanket, eating snoballs. God. Summer, won’t ya hurry up already??

Tags: By Hand London, completed, cotton, dress, Flora, Mood Fabrics, mullet hem, pattern testing, sewing, voile