But, Miss Cora, Roses Aren't Blue! : Simplicity 2215

 

Readers, I made it again. Simplicity 2215 just refuses to leave my sewing table! There's good reason for that, of course. This winter, I just seemed to reach for my Liberty version of this dress over and over. The pattern is comfortable, the fabric is divinely soft, and it layers so well. How could I resist? Unfortunately, since society frowns on one wearing the same dress everyday, the practical voice in my head insisted I make another. So, I did!

Or, rather, I started to anyway. This dress has been sitting, half-sewn, on my table since early January. Why the delay? I blame the fabric. You see, not only did I decide to use Liberty again, but I broke down and chose this length of Carline print. It's my favorite of Liberty's Tana Lawns, which I hunted down after seeing Gertie's Crepe Dress last year. I've been guarding it, like "my precious," ever since. Once I decided to use it, I was scared to make a single misstep while constructing this dress. Originally, I had planned on adding a collar, in the same sapphire blue as the buttons I used. With construction almost complete, however, I started to suspect it would be too sweet. So, I contemplated...

And contemplated...

And continued to contemplate...

Until this past week, when the Sew Weekly theme became Unfinished Objects. I decided to save this poor dress from the Land of Indecisive Sewing.

Obviously, I opted for no collar. Added to the floral print, it was entirely too saccharine. Of course, I had to draft, sew, and iron the collar to make this decision. Once it was basted to the dress, I felt the overwhelming urge to run through the hills, singing The Sound of Music. It wasn't a good look.

Without it, however...it's rather splendid! I made some little changes, as always, the most obvious being the cap sleeves. They're self-drafted, with minimal poof around the cap, and I adore them. I'm not much of a sleeve girl, as my love for cardigans is deep and abiding, but these are so comfortable! And, despite what rumors would say, rather flattering. I may start substituting these sleeves into other patterns, instead of leaving them off as I usually do. 

The details...

Things I Love:

• The fabric. Oh, the fabric! There is nothing better than Liberty Tana Lawn and this print is just gorgeous. Unfortunately, it is rather hard to find at the moment. After sewing this, I had grand plans of buying it in the red and pink colorways, as well. Which are nowhere to be found, blast it! I shall be haunting Ebay, it seems. 

Things I Changed: 

• Added self-drafted cap sleeves.
• Used six buttons on the bodice, instead of four.
• Made the buttonholes horizontal, instead of vertical. I just like the look of horizontal much more, plus find that they work better for large busts.
• Added a full lining, instead of just the prescribed bodice lining.

Tricky Steps & Suggestions:

• Since the pleats are asymmetrical, either mark the fold directions very well or keep the pattern handy, when folding them. Otherwise, it's a breeze!

Notions & Fabric:

• Liberty London Carline print Lawn - Ebay - $20/yard
• Sapphire Cotton Poplin - Fabric Mart - $1.50/yard
• Six covered buttons

Construction Time:

• 10 hours...or a month, depending on how you're counting. 

Miss Cora Loves Liberty: Simplicity 2215

Good evening, friends! I just returned home from The Great Danielson Phoenix Adventure - a trip filled with adorable babies (well, one, but she's a doozy:- my cousin's brand new Lovely Little Kate), family bonding (i.e.: overly competitive Scrabble matches) and general Christmas merriment. It was, unfortunately, not filled with sewing. I just couldn't face dragging my sewing machine through airport security. Think of the lines! Think of the TSA agents poking the bobbin winder! It just wouldn't do.

Though I briefly contemplated begging my parents to take it on their drive out, I decided a week without sewing wouldn't kill me. It didn't - quite. Luckily, I did have a new toy to mitigate the withdrawals. My mother, in all her infinite awesomeness, gave me a Nikon P7000 for Christmas! She's the coolest, I know. The Nikon is one of the three cameras I've been dithering between for the last month - a higher end point & shoot with lots of manual options. It is amazing. If one could legally marry a camera, I'd seriously consider it.

So, what project should I shoot first? I went with a dress that's gone unphotographed for far too long, my Liberty Tana Lawn version of Simplicity 2215, a pattern previously blogged about in seersucker. I adore this dress. The lawn is an awesome vintage Liberty print, all autumnal hues of red, green, brown, and gold.

Isn't it dishy? The feel of it is even better - so soft, it's like buttah. Y'all, I might actually have a problem now. Once you sew Liberty, how can anything else possibly hold a candle? If I ever win the lottery, I will sew nothing but, I promise you now. As for the pattern itself - surprise! - I still love it. You know how I feel about shirt-dresses, after all...

First new camera shot! Isn't it great? Let's all just swoon together, shall we?

Unbelted! I like it better belted, as it feels just a little Maria von Trapp without one.

Bodice! The buttons are a light wood of some sort, which were the result of a harrowing trip to the JoAnn Fabrics button aisle. There was a lot of angst. In the end, I liked how these mostly blend in, while still giving a nature girl vibe to the whole dress.

So, that's it. New camera! Liberty! General dress love! It was a good Christmas. How were your holidays, friends? Any new sewing gadgets or great fabrics waiting for you under the tree?

Miss Cora Wins the Race: Simplicity 2215

Hola, gatitos! Despite what my two week absence may suggest, I have not - in fact - fallen off a cliff or entered the US Witness Protection Program. I did have a camera malfunction, however. You know the kind - when your memory card seems to have wandered off, like a second-grader in a toy store? Luckily, I have invested in a new, bigger (oh la la!) card. Even better, I have things to show you.



First up, is Simplicity 2215. This a Cynthia Rowley pattern with which I'm partially familiar - I made a Talbots-inspired piece from the skirt portion earlier this year. This time around, I undertook the whole shebang, a button-up, softly pleated dress.

For the fabric, I used a charcoal-and-white pinstripe shirting, bought for a song from Fabric Mart during their summer sale. This dress is part of my quest to add more non-prints to my sewn wardrobe. (Pinstripes are technically a print, yes, but one so neutral that we can just call this a solid, agreed?) The fabric is a very fine cotton that drapes beautifully. It took to these pleats like a dream.

As a pattern, 2215 is fairly straight-forward to assemble. The bodice is lined (with the main fabric, in my case), with a layer of interfacing down the button placket and the sewist's desired number of buttons down the front as the closure. The skirt is asymmetrically pleated in both the back and front, with a mix of box pleats and tucks. Honestly, nothing about this pattern is that complicated. The pleating is a bit tedious, yes, but not difficult, while the bodice is almost dizzyingly easy to construct.

So, I should love this dress, right? Easy, cute, and almost a neutral! I do love it...belted. It's perfect belted, flattering and vaguely retro. Unbelted? It is frumptastic. This is probably my fault. I did a few fitting adjustments, based on a tissue-fit, but not a muslin. I did an FBA, then took out an additional two inches from the waist. It wasn't enough. By itself, it hangs at my waist like a sack, despite the adjustment.

Despite my worries that a hot, bearded golfer will run across this blog and see unflattering photos of me, thus negating his decision to take me to his castle in Ireland, I'm going to show you this difference. I know, I know - how very noble. Prepare yourself, friends.

Unbelted: Oh, the horror! The frumpy, waistless horror!

Belted: So cute!

I think I'm going to make this again, if only to prove I can fix this waist size issue. There is some lovely mustard yellow Lisette twill in my stash...

Things I Love:

• The length! This is one of the first Big 4 patterns in recent memory which hasn't required me to take a ridiculously large hem. I appreciate them in skirts, but hate how they weigh down lightweight dresses. Inevitably, I end up unevenly lopping off four inches. With 2215? A simple narrow hem. Hooray!
• The buttons! I love buttons. I love them in skirts and shirts, but especially in dresses. There is no RTW style so likely to draw my attention as a cute, buttoned shirtdress.
  
• The pleats! They really do work so well with this fabric, lightly falling out from the waist.
  

Things I Changed:

• Added a lining to the skirt. My fabric was ever-so-slightly see-through, so after pleating the skirt pieces, I drafted a skirt lining from them. Like the bodice, it's the main fabric, once more, and hemmed with a length of white bias tape.
  
• Increased the number of buttons from four to six. The brass buttons I chose were a bit heavy for my fabric choice, so I added two to the bodice, to prevent strange bodice gaping. Because of my bust size (34DD - cue alarmed gasps from button-up shirts everywhere), I tend to err on the side of more buttons, rather than less anyway.
• Traditional FBA and grading down at the waist.
  

Things I Would Change, If I Made It Again:

• Grade down even more at the waist. With a ten-inch difference between my bust measurement and my waist, this is a pretty standard alteration for me, but I really would prefer to take it in even another inch or two for a better fit.
• Use lighter weight buttons. I fell in love with these little four-hole brass buttons, but they cause the bodice to do some odd things sometimes. A lightweight button really works best, when using a light cotton.
  

Tricky Steps & Suggestions:

• Since the pleats are asymmetrical, either mark the fold directions very well or keep the pattern handy, when folding them. Otherwise, it's a breeze!
  

Fabric & Notions:

• Charcoal Pinstripe Shirting from Fabric Mart - $1.99/yard (seriously!)
• Six brass buttons - $1/button

[As always, click the pictures and they shall get bigger!]

Mlle Marie Va Au Musée: Simplicity 2215

Cynthia Rowley is a genius, kittens. Did we ever doubt it? Her line of patterns for Simplicity is at once fashion-forward and delightfully classic. In every pattern envelope, there is room to skew both ways, depending on the sewer's personal tastes.

Her newest, Simplicity 2215, is no exception. The patterns seem simple - a shirtdress, then a skirt and shirt made from the separated dress. But, of course, nothing from Rowley is ever truly simple. The envelope itself suggests room to spice things up - deconstructed modern trims, bold fabric choices - but the pattern pieces themselves are also a cut above the normal Simplicity fare. For my first 2215 project, I chose the skirt. As I mentioned in my musings post, I've been lusting after a similar ready-to-wear piece from Talbot's, the Champs-Élysées skirt. Indigo is in my spring palette for the Colette challenge and this pattern seemed like a fairly-straightforward recreation of that classic pleated silhouette. I was mistaken. It is so much better.

The skirt pattern ended up being that brilliant Rowley mix of classic and modern. You see, the pleats and folds are actually asymmetrical. Unlike normal skirts, where the pleats typically all go toward the center and are of uniform width, each pleat in 2215 is an individual. Some face toward the center, while others double back toward the side, forming subtle box pleats. They all vary in width, as well, creating interest and depth in this seemingly simple pattern. This difference may not be noticeable to the common eye, but it made me a bit giddy. I live for surprising pattern details.

All this gushing is not to say there weren't some tricky parts. Namely, the side invisible zipper and pockets double threat. This was my first time inserting pockets when dealing with a side zipper. While the Simplicity instructions were remarkably clear, I still ended up sewing the left pocket shut my first time through. There's only so much one can visualize, you know? Right sides have to be together, the zipper has to be upside down, etc. It gets a little muddy. (Full disclosure: I was also a little distracted by the Stuff You Missed In History Class podcast on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Did you know he crash landed in the Libyan desert and that was his inspiration for The Little Prince?) Luckily, it was a snap to take out the stitches and resew the zipper to the correct pocket side.

Another slight issue revolved around pretty details I added, then had to cover up. I've decided to give up on fusible interfacing, unless absolutely necessary, and instead underlined the waistband with some leftover rose print pique from my first Miss Rose dress. It looked absolutely adorable. Then, of course, the pattern told me to fold over the waistband - effectively hiding the pretty. My fault, for not reading through the entire pattern directions, but still a bit disappointing. Similarly, I decided to use navy flexi-lace hem facing to do the hem. It also turned out well - a very cute detail that I will be returning to in the future - but in the end I wanted to take a bit more length off, so I had to fold it under. Once more, hiding the pretty. Luckily, I made the pockets of of the rose pique, so there are still some fun details lingering!

Overall, this is a wonderful pattern. Made up in a stretch indigo denim, it's an almost exact replica of the RTW inspiration skirt. This is a pattern that we'll definitely be seeing again, as I have grand plans to buy some cheery spring poplins and have a whole rainbow of pleated full skirts.

Things I Changed:

• Made the pockets from contrasting printed fabric.
  
• Made the pockets from the Colette Crepe dress, as I find that channel pocket design lays flatter against the body. That's it! No other alterations were necessary. Don't you love skirt patterns?
  

Things I Would Change, If I Made It Again:

• When I make the poplin versions of 2215, I will probably double the waistband width. I tend to like slightly wider waistbands, so that my hourglass figure is clearly visible. The waistband of 2215 ends up being about one-and-a-half inches, so a little on the narrow side for my liking.
• Add length and take a deeper hem. This is a personal thing. I just really like how sumptuous wide hems are and how floaty they make skirts.
  

Tricky Steps & Suggestions:

• The invisible zipper/pocket conundrum. It's a bit confusing to visualize how this pieces together, so my major advice is this: sew the zipper to the side of the pocket that is in line with the skirt side. I originally sewed it to the side that Simplicity says\ to turn under, because that's how the diagram looked. Yeah, that sews the pocket shut. Sew to the long side, whatever you do!
• When making the pleats on the skirt, have the pattern piece handy. While I did properly mark the pleat directions, it was nice to have the little arrows to look at on the piece telling me what to do, as they do switch it up a lot.

Fabric Used:

• Stretch indigo denim from Hancock's - $9.99/yard.
  

Outfit Details:

• Skirt: 2215 made by me! Hooray!
• Shirt: white lace shirt by Merona from Target
• Cardigan: blue lace detail cardigan by Merona from Target (I freaking love their cardigans right now - so many great embellishment and details. Also, no one would guess it's from Target. Even better.)
• Shoes: brown Fiddle Bow wedges by Clarks (Which I love. Not only are they adorable, but they are super comfortable. I now own them in not one, but three colors.)

Completely Superfluous Picture of Remy, Who Really Wanted To Be Involved In This Shoot:

Pattern Musings: Simplicity 2215

Next up on the roster: Simplicity 2215, the newest Cynthia Rowley pattern. I love every part of this pattern - the dress, shirt, and skirt. However, for my first 2215 project I'm going to be practical and make up something that's missing from my wardrobe. Namely, a denim skirt. I go through denim skirts like the cast of Psych goes through pineapples. My current go-to incarnation is a pencil skirt I bought from GAP in 2008. What used to be indigo is now a blah blue. It's time for a change.

The inspiration for this came from the Champs-Élysées skirt currently on sale at Talbots. It's a full-skirted denim skirt that makes me feel all swoony inside. Is there anything more romantic and summery than a full skirt? Making it up in a denim is a wonderful modern twist on a Grace Kelly classic. I am so, so excited about making this skirt. If it works out, you can expect a lot more of these. I'm thinking a whole slew of them in cheery sherbet-colored poplins.

Edit: Want to see the finished skirt? Check out my finished project post!