Sewed 6 dresses in 6 days

I had to get ready for my first FCCLA National Leadership Conference. This was my first year to have students compete in FCCLA at all, and two of them qualified for Nationals. One dropped out, but the other wanted to compete. I also have a state officer this upcoming school year, and they ask state officers to attend NLC before their year begins for training.

The dress code says advisers must wear "professional dress," but I wear business casual at best in my work and home life. So, I thought at least I could sew dresses because I will never be wearing a suit. I had to sew at least 4 dresses and I had 6 days to complete them.

I had enough of the right fabrics in my stash but I went out and bought new patterns because I don't own many dress patterns and none of them were right for the look I wanted. Atlanta, Georgia, is hot and humid so I wanted a basic A-line or trapeze dress for comfort. No belts! I added scarves from the Dollar Tree to dress up the dresses even more, while not getting too hot.

This was my first-try dress. I made A but without a center seam as I wanted to use all one fabric.

This is the pattern for dresses 2-6. I modified and refined the short sleeve as I felt it was not drafted well. I still have some adjustments to make for future use.

The first two dresses did not turn out well, since they were muslins. But I love the fabrics so I will work on altering them to function better for me.

First try on a pattern. I hated the neck detail and felt it did not sew together well. It's a lightweight linen look fabric. On to a different pattern!

Second dress, first try on the pattern I used for all others. Love the fabric, but the darts were wrong for my body. I think it's a rayon blend twill.

Dress in knit and I added a sleeve pleat detail.

Dress in wonderful rayon, again with sleeve pleat detail.

Lovely rayon blend crepe in navy. Love the drape and swing of this dress.

And a rayon linen look that is nice and heavy. Great sheen in person.

Patterns under consideration for 4 dresses

Going to Atlanta for FCCLA National Leadership Conference and need 4 more dresses to look professional every day. Heat and humidity for me mean that I wear things only once, or they get too smelly!

Leaning towards Simplicity 9640 view C and McCalls 6465 or 7711 with short sleeves

I will spread out the pattern tissues and measure a dress I have that fits pretty well to decide which styles and sizes I will be making. Going to use some linen look fabric that's been in my stash a long time and in my mom's stash before that - it won't wrinkle and will feel pretty comfy.

More teal than green on the left, navy in the center, and red on the right.

If I don't have enough red for the whole dress, I will make a navy band for the bottom. I have a light pink to use for the fourth dress.

Wish me luck - I have about 4 days to sew them all!

Planning my vintage projects

Bought a few vintage reproduction patterns during the last pattern sale and I'll be sewing them up for the #VintagePledge 2016.

Simplicity 1692, 1278, and 1012

I'll be sewing in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s with these three. I have some others that I intend to pull out of the stash if I'm able to get these three completed.

I love the neckline & arm details on 1692 and the neckline and hem details of 1278. I'm going to color block 1012 with some linen look I have on hand.

Excited to get started!

More from the fabric store

I found this knitting bag & accessories 

Dog costumes!

To develop for swim suits

No judgement if you love to dress up your canine friends. I don't - it's just not my thing. But then I was looking in the costume section of the McCall's book and saw an Olaf costume! I was squealing right there in the pattern department.

Joe's going to be dressed as Olaf for Halloween! And the costume shouldn't bother him much since he wears his sweater without complaining in cool weather. 

I'm going to make swimsuits for myself since they don't really fit and cost $$$. I like to wear shorts & a top since I love to do water aerobics and walking in the pool. I'll adapt the shorts to add a liner panty and use the top pattern on the right. I'll just order a good swim bra and not worry about support in the top. Of course, I'll line the swim top for modesty - some swim fabrics can get really see-through!

New projects

Since patterns were on sale at Hancock's, we went there (twice!) and picked out some winners.

My choices

One of the patterns, Simplicity 2289, was purchased so I could make some warm & snuggly tunics to throw on over my house clothes when walking Joe.

I bought the pattern on our first visit to Hancock's and then thought I ought to go get the fabric. Found a lot of nice fleece at $2.97 per yard or less!

Animal print with grey, brown, and black

Pretty blue, almost aqua.

A Minky-type fabric and so cute & colorful

New blog

I've been using my other blog, travelswithduffy.blogspot.com, to show pictures of my dog and keep my family up to date. However, I wanted to separate out my knitting, sewing, design, etc., from the other news. I will get some project photos posted asap, as well as a few of my patterns.