Oh, mercy. This was a project. So my daughter is a junior in high school. When she was in eighth grade, I made her a Civil War ballgown. At the middle school, there is an annual Civil War ball. There are a lot of educational activities surrounding this event. It's pretty cool. Most kids dress up. Boys in Union or Confederate uniforms, girls in ballgowns. (Although when my son went the next year, he dressed as a Civil War-era gunslinger, a la Angel Eyes in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.) 

This ball has been going on for about 20 years, so there are actually a few costume shops in the area that have everything a costumed participant might want to wear. For cheap. But noooooo. I had to jump in and beg to make her gown. She was game.

I settled on these Simplicity patterns, one for the dress and one for the hoop skirt that goes underneath. We went to Joann's and found these polyester satins, one a copper color and the other cream. I got some cotton for the hoop skirt. I'm not sure what it was, maybe batiste. I used it to line the bodice, too. I ordered hoop wire for the hoop skirt and boning for the bodice, which I didn't use. I ordered 1" twill tape for the hoop-wire casing. It came on a big roll and I have about 2 miles left of it still.

It was wearable in the end, but there were so many disasters associated with this dress I want to tear my hair out just remembering. I started about four weeks before the ball. The hoop skirt turned out great. My daughter did not want her shoulders to show, so I had to improvise the bodice. It took a while to get it to work. I did use the sleeves from the pattern. I muslined them, the bodice, and the bertha. The sleeves and bertha looked great, and the bodice seemed fine. So I moved on to the fashion fabric.

Things were going fine, but I was just running out of time. Somehow, everything seemed to be taking so long! I ended up taking off two days from work, I worked several times straight through to about 4 am. It was insane. The day of the ball I put the whole shebang on her only to discover it was a foot too long. I still had not figured out or finished the closure of the bodice or the bertha. I still had to do her hair. Oh, and I had not bathed in about a week and I was supposed to go as a spectator to the ball, too.

There was a ruffle on the bottom. I took it off. I slashed the hem. Unfortunately, I was a bit wild at that point, and  the job was not very even. I sewed the hem and as I was finishing that, my mother-in-law, who had dropped in unsuspectingly to check her grandaughter out and snap a photo or two, was set to the task of basting her into the bodice and bertha. I finished the hem and started to fix my daughter's hair. Fortunately, we had practiced before, and I could do something quickly that looked quite nice.

With 15 minutes before the start of the ball, my daughter was ready. My mother -in-law came to the rescue again and offered to drive my daughter to the ball while I showered and dressed.

I got to the ball in time to see the beginning of the event. I guess the kids had to get there early (or maybe I missed something I don't know about). The festivities began with a procession of the students into the gym. (Spectators were in the bleachers above them.) I saw my daughter in her dress walk in and stand on the gym floor in a row for about ten seconds. Then all the students sat in the bleachers. First there was a play. Then there was a reenactment of an army drill. There was a poem and three student violinists playing Ashokan Farewell. They were awesome. Then, about half the students rose and danced a waltz. They sat and the other half got up. My daughter was among them. She danced for about three minutes. She sat. That was that. OMG sometimes reality hits you doesn't it? Three weeks of intense obsessive insanity for five minutes of viewing pleasure. Why, why, why did I not rent a costume?

Okay, I did have fun up to about the last week, and I did learn some things (like never make another Civil War ballgown!).

UPDATE 2020! I recovered some photos off a camera and found pictures of my daughter modeling the dress after I'd fixed the hem and put the ruffles on the skirt and bertha. I ulimatedly removed the stitching I'd added to the bertha because it looked hideous. It looked good once it was gone, but alas, no photos of that.   

Here is a photo of a hoop skirt--not mine--but mine really did look just like this. I am sure I have a picture somewhere. When I find it, I will switch it in.

So what to do with this outfit once the ball was over? I kind of knew all along that if the dress turned out passably wearable, I would donate it to the school. Or try to. I didn't know if anyone would want it.

It sat on my dress form (Gertrude) for some time before I could summon the energy to straighten out a few things before contacting the school. But eventually I got more tired of walking around it (and knocking over Gertrude periodically).

I undid the hem and made it even. I had to repair a couple places that were too short (!). I put the ruffle back on. If you look closely at the sleeves there is a row ruffle along the edge. I added that same ruffle to the bottom of the bertha. I put a zipper in the bodice and hooks and eyes on the bertha. I marked the skirt and the hoop skirt with an embroidered "F" to indicate the front of each (since the hoop skirt closed in the front but the gown skirt closed in the back (by the way the pleating on that skirt was fabulous; it looked like something Melanie from Gone with the Wind would wear!). Then I sent a note to my daughter's awesome history teacher. She said she would be thrilled to have it. I boxed it up and took it to the office. Arrividerci Civil War ballgown. I do wish I had taken some pictures of it on somebody. I did take some on Gertrude. I must find them. 

This might have been the first thing I made--other than Halloween costumes for my kids--when I started sewing again as an adult. I must be tenacious of life! Such a disaster and yet I kept sewing. Go figure.

Ha ha ha. Hysterical. What is even funnier is what I was imagining. I thought satiny underlayer with a chiffon overlayer. Dreamy. I'm not the only one who thought to take this pattern in that direction--there are some posts on the Burda site from people who did exactly that. They bemoan their disastrous results, but their dresses are quite lovely, and honey, you haven't seen disaster until you have seen this dress.

I have a vintage dress that I had in mind to imitate. The contrast between it and my effort is quite comical.

I made a belt thinking it might help. Uh, no.

No, I never bothered to hem it. Would you?

I made the short version, no embellishments or split seams. The first time I made it, it was in this orange and white seersucker that was on super sale at Joann's. I discovered it was too tight when I first tried it on, and I never bothered to hem it. A blessing in disguise, because I really don't know what I was thinking with that fabric! It is hideous. I count my lucky stars whenever I spy it in the discard pile that I did not do any further work with it.

But I knew I needed to make a larger size when I wanted to make it again. And I did want to make it again one day after my husband and I went to dinner. The waitresses were wearing cute little kilt-like skirts. My husband said, "now there's a skirt you ought to make! It would look great on you." So the next day I went to Joann's looking for fabric. It had to be red plaid. Well I found what I was looking for--color and patternwise--in the homespun section. Homespun. Sounds so quaint. Homespun. Must be nice, right? So I bought it and sewed it up. Yuck! It was very easy to sew but it hangs like a stiff curtain, which is probably what it is designed for. The skirt is also a wee bit too big. My husband loves it. But this one is going to get slipped into the discard pile.

It doesn't look so hideous with a shirt hanging over it--does it?

But, ugh. Really, it's too stiff.

and the sad thing is, this pattern was slight challenge for me and before I put it on I thought I had made a leap in my skills. Alas.

So I've been learning violin for about five years. Practicing all I can, taking lessons. I don't get to play much with others--only duets with my mother-in-law and a friend. My mother-in-law is a very good cellist and so it is always a real joy to play with her. My friend is also a violinist. We get to play very rarely.

Finally, I found an ensemble to play with last fall!! It's called New Horizons Orchestra. It is meant for adults who are learning to play musical instruments. It was first begun in Rochester some time ago, and now there are many New Horizons programs across the country. Mine is run out of Baldwin Wallace College, and it is an incredible bonus that it is. BW has a fine music program and a great musical education program and the conductor is a fantastic musician and teacher and students from the college do internships with the program so we get to play next to them and learn from them in our sectionals. It is such a blessing of a program. I just love it. I almost cry  at some rehearsals when I look around and see all the adults who just want to play music and come week after week to do it--social workers, scientists, teachers, professors, roofers, hairdressers, retirees, hospital technicians, housewives, pilots. It's just beautiful.

We were instructed to wear black bottoms and white tops for our first concert. Well, I just could not resist the idea of wearing a long black skirt to my first-ever concert performance. I knew I might be the only one to go all out like that and it might look pretentious, but I couldn't help it. I've been working hard (uh, not that you'd know it to hear me), and I just wanted to have fun in my long black concert skirt in my first-ever concert with my beloved violin and my new-found compadres in the New Horizons Orchestra.

So I weighed my options--I have about six possible skirt patterns; I've been on a search for a nice gathered skirt pattern--and I settled on McCall's 6438. I made it longer by extending the side seams along the same angle they were headed. I used a very strange fabric that I got from Joann's. Learning fabric is almost as complicated as learning the violin! SO many freakin' variables! This looks wet. Sometimes it kinda looks like leather. (Victoria of 10000 hours used it for a pair of cool leggings; she called it "imitation leather.") I thought it might look sumptuous as a long skirt.

This is how I wore it--with the icky shirt untucked. Sigh. The reason is because there is no zip in this skirt. But there is an opening--one juuuuust barely big enough to get my hips through. I put a heavy-duty closure at the band. It fits nicely there. I just didn't have time to mess with a zipper before the concert. Ha ha ha. So typical to be clueless about how much time a project will take. At any rate, the opening doesn't look bad, but when you have white top under it, the opening is accentuated. Oh, but look how nicely it gathers at the waist. It's very heavy (in a good way) and very swishy. Fun to wear except for momentary suspicions that people think I'm a freak.

I made this a couple of months ago for my daughter. She was wearing a friend's hoodie and she said she wanted one in a few different colors. I had some gray cotton jersey in my stash and she said that would be good for one. I had just taken a class and learned how to rub off a pattern from a real garment, so I rubbed her friend's shirt and created a pattern. I just wasn't sure if it was good enough to cut up good fabric and then have my picky daughter disdain it. So I went through my patterns, and, duh, found this Jalie, which was very similar. I looked at her friend's hoodie and then looked at this Jalie pattern and looked at my rub-off pattern and looked at her friend's hoodie and back at the Jalie pattern. I went with the Jalie. It turned out so nice! And my daughter loves it. She wears it all the time. So much pleasure in making a garment someone actually likes to wear.

I've made the pants part of this pattern a few times. About three years ago, I made everyone in the family a pair for Christmas, each with an applique "O." I was too lazy to applique "OSU" in the time I had and certainly too lazy for "Ohio State University." Everyone is pretty much still wearing those pjs.

Then my daughter asked me for another pair. These are made from a nice flannel we got at Joann's. Very simple to make, though that never stops me from making them too big and too long. She likes them anyway.

Then my son wanted a pair of "suitjamas"--inspired by Barney on the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother." We looked around a bit, and they were $99!!! Plus $10 shipping!!! I said, infamously, "I will make you some."

Holy cows, this project took a lot of time. I made the suit jacket and pants from Simplicity 3971 and the inner shirt from Jalie 2322 (shhh, don't tell my son it's a girl's pattern; I did switch the button opening), though it's not a full shirt. I will show you my secret circumventions in a moment.  I used some polyester satin from Joann's.

The inner sanctum details are that I did not put sleeves on the shirt. I sewed a strip of the shirt fabric into the cuffs of the sleeve so that it would look like there were cuffs, but it doesn't really have that effect in the end. He wanted a tie, but I didn't want him choking or being uncomfortable in the (unlikely) event that he actually wore these as pajamas. So I sewed a strip of the black around the shirt collar and made a removable tie that affixes to the shirt with a button.

Actually, as the wrinkles in the full-length pictures reveal, he has worn it to sleep in!

I was in Joann's one day and I couldn't resist taking a walk through the aisles of fabrics. I spotted this imitation snake skin in grays and black. I have seen so many cute snake skin skirts on other people's blogs that I thought I would try it.

I made a muslin of this skirt in a wool that I have in my stash. It's nice but since learning it was not my color, I have relegated it to muslin fabric. (It was on sale when I bought it so in spite of the fact that it is nice 100% wool, it makes a luxurious and economical muslin fabric.) It fit very nicely.

So I made up the skirt in the snakeskin fabric and put a lining in using some thicker polyester lining fabric I had in my stash. Well, I am not too happy with the resulting garment. It is a little too tight, probably because the polyester has less give than the wool woven I used for the muslin. Moreover, the styling of the pattern does not correspond to the snakeskin vibe. It looks like Old Grandma Hipster.

I have had a love-hate-love-hate relationship with this dress. I searched long and hard for a sheath dress pattern that would make the one dress I wanted to make more than any other. My Holy Grail Dress.

It all began one day many years ago when I tried on a sheath dress in a Marshall's thinking it would never work on me. I had never put on a close-fitting, straight-up-and-down dress in my life. On a whim, maybe because is was a nice wool fabric with a lining, I took it to the dressing room and tried it on. I felt like I was in heaven. It felt great and looked great. And yet I did not buy that dress. Later I would kick myself. Why why why did I not buy that dress? Once I started sewing again, it hit me that I could make that dress!

I got several patterns. Made a few muslins. None seemed right. I couldn't seem to adjust anything without it looking disastrous. It went on and on. I decided to find someone to teach me some fitting skills. I found Heidi at a place called Stitch Cleveland, her shop. (It is since gone.)

We looked at my candidate patterns and decided quickly on New Look 6909--it conformed most closely to my measurements. We made a couple small adjustments--we took off about 5/8" from the top shoulder seam, lowering the bottom of the armscye by the same, to accommodate my shorter-than-the-pattern torso. She took in the back darts when we fitted the muslin, lengthening them, and I think elevating them a bit. I can't remember now how we fit my hips. Surely I did not fit the pattern out of the envelope from shoulders to hips. C'est impossible. My hips are two sizes larger. But I just don't remember making any adjustments there. We also put in a full lining instead of the facings (yuck!).

The fabric is some polyester woven from Joann's. I had to find it quickly since I had an appointment with Heidi and could not find the wool gabardine I had bought months before when I started the quest.  (I did find it later, like a year later, in the coat closet hanging on a  hanger.)

When I finished the dress, I was very pleased. The quality of the construction was high (thanks, Heidi!). It fit me like a glove. Actually, I was 10 pounds lighter then, so I am stretching this garment's limitations right now. However, I did not like the fabric. I did not like the width of the shoulders--they fell off my arms sometimes and I have to wear a thin-strapped brazziere or else it will show. But one day I pulled it out and wore it to work and I've been wearing it regularly since. It's funny how something can fit so closely to one's figure and yet be comfortable to wear.

I fancied I looked pretty good with my form-fitting sheath dress. That is, until I took a picture of myself and saw the figure that was being fitted. Yikes I am quite askew. One angle looks like a fertility goddess and another looks like Quasimodo.

I am in the midst of making this dress again. I am trying to use Susan Khalje's techniques from the Couture Dress class at Craftsy. I am having such a hard time getting the markings onto the organza. I have tried twice now and when I pull up the carbon the organza has shifted or shifts and everything is off. I have not cut the fashion fabric yet. I am not sure how to get the organza to behave. I'm thinking of going rogue and using the muslin to cut the fashion fabric and then setting the cut-out organza pieces on top

Let's see. I think I've made this twice. The first time was with this cotton camo print from Joann's. It was a little transparent so I lined it with a poly white knit. I just love this top! I think the colors look good on me and the shaping is nice. Plus, it is warm.

Next, I made it in this beautiful rayon jersey from Joann's. I loved the color, though I might have been erroneously swayed by the label, "chili." It's really just true red. Since I'm lazy, I pretreated it and then threw it in the dryer. It was on "delicate"! As I recall, it came out wrinkled. I think I put it back in the dryer with a wet towel and then laid it out flat. So lazy! It was very hard for me to tell where the grain was. Guess where this story is going...I cut it out, sewed it up, put it on, and discovered that the grain or ribs were going horizontally, not vertically. Why could I see this so clearly now and not when I was going to cut? I do not know. So needless to say this top hangs strangely. I look pregnant and the fabric clings a little too dearly to the girls.

I kind of don't like how the neckline with this pattern will stretch into a U-shape if the knit is fluid. The camo version is firmer and stays more rounded, which I prefer. So if I make this again, I must remember to attend to the body of the fabric. I wonder if only the binding material needs to have body. 

When I first made this jumper, I was so thrilled. It was probably the first thing I ever made with a lining (I guess I made it about three years ago). The zipper looked great. The fabric is a darling corduroy print, black with little red and gray dots. The lining is deep red and a bit of it pokes out around the neckline. A mistake but it looks like piping and I think it is cool.

But eventually I realized it is too tight across the bust and the hips. And the corduroy hangs straight out from the hips and looks silly, I think, especially when it's hugging the high hip and behind. I love corduroy, but I will be careful about what patterns I use with it from now on.