Simplicity 2219 and faux Butterick 5497

With the sun finally setting now about 7:30 pm I feel as though I have a bit more energy to get things done.  Lots of things.  For starters, I rearranged the apartment and brought all of my fabric out from the closet, putting an Ikea "Billy" bookcase in its place.  The closet is rather rectangular with an 8-ft ceiling; it is about half the size of a New York City apartment!  Since there is more daylight, there is now a greater concern to protect the books and finish more fabric projects, especially before starting new ones.  Finally I have done just that.

The hardest project was actually the faux tunic (Butterick 5497), since using stretch knit jersey with the serger proved to be quite annoyingly tricky - it just did not want to be serged.  This particular remnant is your typical T-shirt material, though a bit on the thin side, consisting of 50% rayon, 44% polyester and 6% linen of a knitted rather than woven weave.  The stripe bands are ~0.5 inches (1.2 cm) thick of alternating colours navy blue and grey/blue.  The best part is, this shirt cost me less than $5 to make!  It is part of the reason I love remnant bins of fabric; even better when that scrape is 50% off.  The other reason I love remnants is that they make for great practice fabric.


It turned out as a nice, loose pullover top that would be great with cute shorts and even nicer toned legs.  The dark striping just reminds me so much of the beach.  

Hum, the Beach!  
(...Several minutes later...)

Right, I don't live near the beach any more.  Any who, the reason this top does not resemble the pattern is due to the fact that I only had 0.695 yards with which to work.  This meant that I had to make the top and bottom as one piece, thereby eliminating the gathering under the bust, by overlapping the pattern pieces during layout.  

 

Front

Next time, it would be nice to make this top again, following pattern and with slightly thicker fabric.  I would like to make it into a dress by lengthening the lower sections.  I will probably need to also ease out the sides to accommodate for my very round behind!  ...Or maybe I will follow The Mahogany Stylist's version, adding roushing to the sides and then add a skirt to that.  Then again, my eyes may be bigger than my head.

Thus I call it Done.

The more lackluster of the projects was the Hawaiian cotton print dress.  The fabric looked great on the bolt and was rather on the cheap side, if I remember correctly, but I am just not a large print kind of gal.  My Mother thinks the fabric could make excellent curtains.  Now that I have finished construction on the dress, I am in agreement with her.  (I do have 3 yards left...)  To me, the dress hearkens back to the 1970s with their large prints and colors, empire waists and long, flowing skirt lengths.

The Simplicity 2219 pattern was designed for stretch knit/jersey but I thought the dress pattern could be adapted to the Hawaiian cotton print without a zipper.  The only real change I made was opening up the front: not attaching the center yokes to one another but by adding hook-and-eyes to make the front close, thereby losing the front gathering.  

Originally I had hoped to find a dark blue cotton fabric to match for the yoke in order to break up the pattern but to no avail.  As such, the piece does not work for me.  

Too much pattern, not enough contrast?  Wrong pattern for this fabric?  I just don't look good in 1970s style clothing?  All of the above!  I should like to try the pattern again, just NOT with large print fabric.

I feel like this will make a great pregnant and nursing dress, assuming I do not expand too much if the day ever comes.

Back view with best illustration of print pattern.

Yeah, the sleeve hem did not turn out too great.

And Done!

Next up, the reversible skirt fitted in pink and perfected in blue.