Heidi

I haven’t been doing any sewing lately, for a variety of reasons. But I have some beautiful fabric that I’ve been wanting to make into this dress.  From everything I’ve seen, it’s an easy sew, and it’s a really classic fit.  And it lends itself well to alterations.

So I have my fabric and I’ve printed, taped, and cut out the pattern pieces. Now I just have to muster up the energy to wash and dry my fabric and make a muslin of the bodice.  It’s not the sewing itself that I avoid, you see—it’s all the preparatory steps. I hate ironing the fabric. I hate cutting. And I am not a huge fan of fitting myself, partly because it’s a pain doing it myself and partly because it’s generally frustrating to know that there are fitting issues that I can’t fix because I just don’t know enough.

But whatever. I’m going to give this one a whirl. I have a little more than a yard of this beautiful Japanese double gauze:

I only have enough of the print for the skirt of the dress, but I thought it would work well as a faux-skirt-and-top: I’ll make the bodice from a solid cotton, and the skirt from my print, and wear it with a belt (the pattern actually includes a self-belt, but I’m not going to make it. It seems like a lot of work and my print won’t really work well for a belt, and I don’t really have enough anyway).

So I matched my print to a really soft pearl gray broadcloth at my local fabric store (it matches the gray background of the trees perfectly, it’s kind of amazing).  I’m going to self-line the bodice and use the broadcloth for the skirt lining as well.  The broadcloth was  a little spendy, but it’s such a nice fabric it’s almost worth it just to work with it.

Maybe writing about this project will create enough accountability that I’ll actually get it made. I even pulled out an ugly brown broadcloth from my scrap stash for my muslin! Tiny steps, man, tiny steps.