Welp, I see that it has been 3 months since my last post haha! Honestly not trying to kill my own blog but it looks like I’m causing a slow death regardless.
ANYWAY
I have a new project! Yay! This is also 1/2 of my Outfit Along project – the sewing portion. The knitting portion is, unfortunately, still unfinished. More on that in a minute, I want to talk about the dress!
I actually started this dress back in 2018 – I was inspired by Fiona’s gorgeous white version and immediately wanted to make one for myself. I ordered the Myosotis Dress from Deer & Doe, and a lovely white rayon lawn from Mood Fabrics to make it up. I got as far as cutting the fabric pieces and then… just kind of gave up. I’m not sure what exactly caused the flame to burn out – but I stuck it in a drawer and left it alone for the winter. I definitely still had every intention to sew it – it survived a pre-move purge and was shuttled from one house to the next – but not really any current desire. I think I realized that the style + color weren’t really something I wanted to wear (looking at Fiona’s post again, I still think the dress is great but I also don’t know WHAT I was thinking when i decided to make it for myself as it is absolutely, definitely not something I would necessarily wear myself), but since I had already committed and cut the fabric I felt the best solution was to sew it up and at least then I could donate the dress to someone if I still didn’t like it.
So, that’s a long, boring-ass story about how the dress started. This year, when Andi and I planned the OAL, I immediately knew the Myosotis was going to be my sewing WIP. I got the pieces out, and had everything sewn up with a couple of days.
Now, the first rendition of the dress post-sewing looks completely different than the final version. I had a feeling that I was going to want to change the color, but I wanted to give the white version a fair fighting chance before I made that decision. As far as sewing – this was a simple, efficient make. I cut a size 36, with no pattern adjustments. I made version A, with aaaaall the ruffles, and added slim waist ties to pull in the waist a little bit (I can’t take credit for this inspiration, again, this was something I saw + liked on Fiona’s dress!). I sewed all the seams with a fine 70/10 needle and serged the seam allowances. Even though I was fairly certain I was going to dye the dress, I still chose to use white thread since I wasn’t sure what the final color would be. Since the thread is polyester, that meant it would not take the dye – meaning the topstitching would end up contrasting. I was aware of this going into the sewing, and just made sure to be extra careful that my topstitching was even and nice-looking.
One of the biggest complaints I read about this pattern is that people seem to really hate all the gathering. Y’all, I don’t know what kind of lazy sewers are out there but honestly it’s really not that bad and goes together really fast.
Once I finished the dress, I tried it on to confirm that the style was not going to work for me. Again, it’s a beautiful and romantic look – which isn’t how I like to dress. Furthermore, the fine, lightweight fabric was essentially see-through (as clearly seen on my dressform). I’m no stranger to dressing like an absolute hussy in the summer, but even this was a bit outside of my comfort level (and before you get at me with crazy suggestions like “adding a lining” or “wearing a slip,” let me remind you that summer here is very hot and I try to get away with wearing as few layers as possible, ha!).
I knew I’d never wear the dress as it was, so I decided to experiment with dyeing it using coral Rit dye! I followed the instructions for doing this in the washing machine, using about 3/4 of the bottle and allowing it to agitate for about 50 minutes. The resulting color is VERY saturated – much more me! – and also takes the edge off the sheerness so that I can wear this dress without looking like I’m trying to win a wet t-shirt(dress?) contest. I should also report that I was dismayed to discover the dye turned my washing machine pink, despite running a couple of loads with bleach + old towels afterward (as instructed by the bottle). I own my washing machine, so it’s not a huge deal, but it was kinda lame regardless. That all being said, after a couple months of regular laundry, the washing machine is no longer pink whatsoever (I should also did – and did not transfer any dye to my other clothes). So it does eventually come out! Now, the dress itself – I have to wash it by itself as the dye still bleeds. I wash it in the sink using Soak rinseless wash (if you don’t already own this, do yourself a favor and invest. It’s marketed toward knitters but I use it for all my hand-washing, including lingerie, and it RULES) to prevent it from dyeing an entire load of laundry. My kitchen sink is stainless steel so I have not noticed any dye transfer by using this method.
Here is the dress after dyeing! It was almost good but I tried it on one last time and decided the sleeve ruffles had to go.
I cut them off, plus a few more inches so the sleeves would be cap-length. These were turned under and hemmed – using white thread, to match the rest of the topstitching.
The finished dress is definitely much more my style! The saturated coral color is one of my favorites for summer, and loose, swishy shape is perfect for the extreme heat we are experiencing lately. I’m actually surprised at how much I enjoy wearing this dress – it’s still a slight departure from my usual style, but it is a fun little way to change things up.
So that’s my finished sewn garment for the OAL – what about my knitted garment? Well. I had an Improv sweater waiting in WIP purgatory that I had all intentions of finishing for this OAL. I had started it about 3-4 years ago (back when I lived in an apartment in West Nashville)(ooh and here I am back in West Nashville IN MY OWN HOUSE look at how things go full circle yay), got about halfway down the body and decided I didn’t like how loose the fit was. Rather than unknit, I just left it in my knitting basket. Upon rediscovering for the OAL, I tried it on again and was fine with the sizing so decided to finish that.
Unfortunately, since this sweater has been out of my queue for so long, I seem to have lost all the notes I made with the math for sizing. I was able to finish the body, but the sleeves are a little slower going as I had to work out the equations for decreasing, and also try the sweater on frequently to make sure things aren’t going haywire. It is working out fine and I will certainly finish it – it’s just slow-going. At this point, the sweater is too bulky to comfortably carry around outside the house (and again, there’s that whole issue of trying it on as I’m knitting), which means it doesn’t go with me when I travel – which is frequently! AND, in the meantime, another WIP that I started right before the OAL had a major error that required a lot of unknitting so I’ve been focusing on that. So, I didn’t finish my knitted sweater – but I plan to in time for sweater season! Which to me encompasses the general spirit of the OAL that I was aiming for!
I think that’s all for this make! Lord, I don’t know how I manage to take a simple dress and turn it into a giant blog post of verbal diarrhea. If you’re wondering, I’m like this IRL too when people try to talk to me. What can I say, I’m from the South haha. Mindless chatter is our love language.
** Note: The fabrics + RIT dye used in this post were provided to me by Mood Fabrics, in exchange for my participation in the Mood Sewciety Blog (oh yeah, MSN moved!). All opinions are my own!And extra big thanks to my friend Jennifer for being a real pal and taking these photos for me when I was in Brooklyn last month for recent Jeans Making Intensive class at Workroom Social! Which, btw – 2020 for WS dates are listed! Yay! More dates to come as a I finalize them!
LLADYBIRD 