Jellyfish and Flamingos!

It was a long weekend in Toronto this past weekend and that meant I got some sewing in! I made two dresses that are perfect for the summer!

The first one is a lengthened version of Cashmerette’s Concord t-shirt. Jenny posted a tutorial on making the top into a dress and I couldn’t resist after seeing her version. I decided to just have a straight hem on my version and make it with the digitally printed jellyfish cotton lycra I got at Lapjesmarkt in Utrecht, Netherlands.

I adore this fabric. It is just the right amount of weight and lycra to make a body hugging dress hide all my lumps and accentuate all my bumps. Don’t get me wrong, I love my lumps and have no qualms about showing them off, but man I look damn good in this dress. I used yellow ribbing on the neckline and sleeve bands and chose the scoop neck and 3/4 sleeve. I should have reduced the length of the ribbing by an inch and a half or so because of how ribbing stretches out when you sew, but I didn’t. As a result the sleeve bands are a bit loose and the neck slightly stretched out. Neither are very noticeable, though. I didn’t topstitch the neckline down this time. I will see if it needs it after a few wears. The topstitching would just keep the neckband in place a little better, but it may be fine. When I make this dress again, I think doing a swayback adjustment would be good since there is some pooling of fabric in my lower back. I never did a narrow should adjustment for the top just but will be doing that for future versions.

I love the way my butt looks in this dress… Sorry not sorry. I love my butt. Hahha.

The second dress I made this weekend is a Colette Myrtle pink flamingos dress! This is my third version of the Myrtle dress and my first time using the longer length and the shoulder tabs. It’s also my last time using the shoulder tabs. Man, I hated putting them on and don’t really love the look. I used some lightweight knit interfacing because the first version was a disaster. This version sucked too so I changed the square ends to pointed ends like the tabs for the Concord t-shirt. The points still doing look great and then the position of them didn’t look great either… Ugh.

Here is my shaaaaaame:

Oh well. Still love this dress. I used a wider elastic for the waistband. It’s 1.5 inches and shortens the bodice slightly. I much prefer the shorter bodice and wider elastic so I will be repeating that in the future. When I bought the fabric, I thought I could get a maxi length out of the 3 metres (I’m short…), but neglected to think of the fact that the print is directional and that everything is cut on the fold. I got the midi length version out and much prefer it. I will make myself a maxi dress someday, though. I had to cut the back in two pieces with no attempt to pattern match. I cut it a bit wider than necessary, I think. It looks a bit too wide.

Here is my cute self in the dress:

 

I put pockets in this one. Although I don’t love how it makes the side seams a little bumpy, I can’t live without pockets. The fabric is not super drapey so the cowl isn’t perfect draped, but that’s okay by me. The fabric is super soft and felt like I was wearing pjs all day at work. Nothing like secret pjs!

I’m going to be revitalizing our back patio into a flowery heaven for bees and butterflies. We got some flowers on the weekend, but before I plant I need to turn the soil in the plantar behind me, add compost/fertilizer and something to help the soil drain better. I thought I would start taking blog pictures in front of the plantar to show off the progress. I can’t wait to see the transformation, but I have to wait to get the soil/compost, etc until next week. I’m excited. The times I tried to do this in the past were not successful due to squirrels trying to dig up my plants. I have some ideas for solutions for that. I hope it works out this time. It seems such a waste of space otherwise and a great opportunity for feeding the pollinators  and helping raise up the city’s small bee population.