Winter Dresses

A longtime friend of mine recently got married.  The wedding was really cute and it was great to get to spend some quality time with other longtime friends and their families from back home.  It was also an opportunity to make another dress!

HH wishes you a Happy Movember!

I had purchased some pink-ish, peach-ish herringbone wool on Etsy a while back, and I had the perfect pattern to pair it with.  I even had just enough of the perfect color lining material that I had bought at a yard sale or estate sale over the last year.  Since this was the first time I had made the pattern up, the fit needed some tweaking mid-project and it still doesn't fit perfectly, but overall it is a nice dress...even if it is the exact same color as my skin.  (I decided to temporarily forgo my self-imposed ban on jewelry and find a necklace to break up all the peach color, which I got from a chatty old lady at the Oly flea market.)  I did get one random comment from a stranger at the wedding who said she thought the dress was cute, which to me is evidence of a successful make.

Another thing I like about the dress is that I will be able to wear it to work with a shirt underneath and/or a cardigan over the top.  I have recently come to the realization (confirmed by HH) that in the past I have focused too much on making dresses to wear to a single event, without much thought about whether I will want to wear it again on other occasions.  Now, I am trying to think more carefully about making things that I can wear to work as well, as I'm trying to dress more nicely on a more regular basis.  I even bought some nice Dansko shoes, tall boots (which I have never owned before, excluding my trusty Sorels), and 3 pairs of thick and warm tights so I can wear dresses throughout the year.

To that end, I made up the same pattern again in a thick, neutral-colored plaid wool that HH originally bought for himself on Ebay.  Having already made the necessary alterations to the pattern pieces, the fit on this dress was better from the start.  I originally put in side seam pockets (because who doesn't love pockets on dresses) but took them out because they were too bulky and didn't lie flat.  I should easily be able to wear this dress to work during the fall, winter, and spring seasons when it will be relatively chilly and wet most of the time.

After I finished up that dress I felt the desire to keep sewing, so I made another dress from start to finish all in the same day!  (It helped that HH was out of the house all day and evening watching the high school football championships with a friend from back home.  However, this also meant that there was no one to remind me to eat - I have been known to skip several meals when in a sewing groove - but I did somehow manage to keep myself nourished this time around.)  I rifled through my fabric and patterns looking for some inspiration when I pulled out some black polka dot cotton that I thought could be suitable for a casual work dress.  I still had this black, sparkly top on my dress form (Virginia), which further inspired me to make a dress version of the shirt.

Since I didn't have a pattern for it, I traced the shirt on my fabric with chalk, cut out the top portions, and made a simple dirndl skirt to attach to it.  It is fully lined in some black silky fabric that I picked up at Goodwill.  The nice thing about this dress is that it has no closures (zippers or buttons) so it slips on over the head, but it still has some shape to it thanks to elastic at the waist.  I am really quite happy with this dress considering how quickly it came together and how comfortable it is.  I only wish I had remembered to put pockets in this one!

Now I have three new dresses and the appropriate accessories (shoes and tights) to wear them to work.  My goal is to wear one dress per week, and once I get another wool jacket made to wear one jacket per week as well.  I really do feel more put-together when I am dressed more nicely, so hopefully I am able to continue on this trend of making work-appropriate clothes more often.