Hawaii (Simplicity 9164)

Finally a finished object.  Quite possibly the first moderately satisfactory FO since little miss Em was born (aside from many, many diapers and diaper covers).

Awkward self timed pic

The pattern is a (highly) modified version of Simplicity 9164: a peasant dress for woven fabric.  I picked this pattern up for 99 cents at the thrift.  Of course it's a size I haven't fit into since, well, probably ever.  I bought it intending to resize it (which could happen, someday...)

The one on the right, should you be in doubt

I had to buy it just because I love hippie style and this dress, straight from the '60s or '70s certainly qualifies.  A distinct lack of sewing mojo has delayed progress but I finally traced the pattern and guess what...

Skeptical at first, I love the gathers on the back

It's got about 10 inches of ease built in.  I actually pinched out a bit from the top bodice and lengthened the bottom bodice pieces adding a few inches for the hips and version 1 fit!  (More to come on that later, hopefully).

Wait, if it fits what's with that sneaky side panel?  I did something stupid.  You may remember seeing this knit before here.  Which means I've used it before.  Which means I knew perfectly well that for this material to stretch the pattern on it has to be sideways.    Knowing this I stupidly brazenly cut the pieces out with the stretch going the wrong way.  

You can't see the print too well but I thought this pic deserved another view anyway

My line of reasoning: Hey, this pattern's for a woven right?  So the knit will still be stretchier than a woven would.  

 Hmm. Yes, but this pattern is not in my size it's in a much smaller size.  Logic fail.  Almost a total fail as a matter of fact but inspiration struck.

And there it is.  I cut side panels complete with a small amount of poorly executed ruching (at that point the project was halfway in the trash anyway) and voila!  It fits.  Wasn't this sort of ruching on trend pretty recently?  So I just look moderately out of date and not inept at sewing.

You can sort of see in this shot that I should have tapered down to nothing at the sleeves since the elastic was already sewn and now the sleeves are too loose.  But all in all, for a project saved from eternity as a wadder I'm pretty happy with it. 

I already have the next one cut out and have added a bit of width to the lower bodices just to be on the safe side.  From now on, though, I'll add a bit of vertical length to the top front bodice pieces as it doesn't hit quite at the top of the rib cage (darn these unsupportive nursing bras).

Top front issues

I wore this shirt all day in the crazy heat running errands and it is super comfy, nursing friendly, and I think pretty flattering (it fits at least).  So all in all: win!

And here, I suppose, there's some sort of inadvertent (and bad) America's Next Top Model happening. I'm not sure how this pose happened, I know it wasn't intentional haha.

By the way, this fabric used to be the sheet on my bed in high school (I never throw anything away, much to my husband's chagrin) so this tee was basically free if you don't count the cost of the pattern!