rough seas, they carry me

After succesfully making one dress with buttons, I was excited to try to make another for my Easter dress.  I had some Cotton and Steel canvas that I'd wanted to use for a yoked shift dress, however I changed tack upon conferring with Jenny and Elizabeth and decided to make another Helmi.  Since I couldn't find a shift dress pattern that was exactly what I wanted and I didn't really have time to do a muslin, sticking with the Helmi made a lot of sense.

I cut this one a size smaller than my first because I wanted slightly narrower shoulders and the pattern has so much ease that grading wasn't necessary.  I found it to be incredibly difficult to pattern match with this fabric though I tried.  I struggled to even figure out where the repeat was so ultimately settled for good enough.  This worked out okay on the placket but not as well on the side or waist seams.

I again did a mixture of bias binding and Hong Kong seam finishes, using bias strips from quilting cotton that had fishes on it to coordinate with the waves on the canvas.  I used my new clapper to try to flatten the seams to make sewing with the canvas less cumbersome.

I modified the hem to be a high-low hem.  There's probably a better way to do this, but I just lengthened the side seams to the bottom of the shirttail hem and then borrowed the shaping from the Fen pattern pieces, if that makes sense.  I changed up the construction so that I sewed the hem after sewing the side seams since I wasn't doing the shirttail hem.

Again, I added in-seam pockets.  This time, I used a tutorial from Megan Nielsen that includes suggestions of when to finish the various seams, which my sleep-deprived brain found super useful.  In the tutorial, Megan Nielsen shares her trick for making sure the pockets line up.  While reading it, I thought, "Why wouldn't you just know that they lined up because you'd measured properly?"

And then I sewed one pocket piece at 3.75" below the waist and its matching piece at 4.25" below the waist.

I don't know how I managed to do that, except, well, sleep deprivation.  But I very much felt like my hubris had been my downfall, and that I need to cross stitch a sampler with the motto, "Measure twice; bias bind all your seam finishes once."  I had bound all those seams by the time I realized my error and since no one would know about it except me, I didn't bother fixing it.  And now you all know about it.

I found buttons that I thematically loved for this fabric since they looked like driftwood.  However, they were too large for the concealed placket so I scrapped them for other buttons that were reminiscent of driftwood but not as great.  Because these buttons were still a little large, I left off the top collar button and buttonhole.  I knew that I would never use that button and it got very close to the first button on the placket which looked odd to me.

Despite the pocket debacle, I'm pleased with this dress, love the fabric and am thrilled that I got to make my Easter dress this year.

Summary:

Pattern: Helmi Tunic Dress by Named Patterns
Fabric: Cotton and Steel Waves Canvas, purchased at Hawthorne Threads; Cotton and Steel Sardinha Neutral Quilting Cotton for bias strips, also purchased at Hawthorne Threads (now sold out)
Thread: Gutermann 248 (blue); random grays and creams when matching bias tape
Buttons: purchased at Piedmont Fabrics
Needles: Universal 80/12 for attaching bias strips to main fabric; Jeans 100/16 for construction seams
Modifications: Added in-seam pockets (using tutorial from Megan Nielsen); replaced shirttail hem with slight high-low hem using Fen dress pattern as guide; bias bound/ Hong Kong finished seams throughout (using this tutorial from JuJu Vail for the Hong Kong finishes); used bias strip facing for skirt hem (using this tutorial from Colette); left off collar button and buttonhole.
Things I'll change next time: Press seam allowance for inner collar stand at a scant 3/8" to make it easier to catch when stitching in the ditch; smaller buttons; maybe a slightly longer skirt if high-low hem used again; place pockets at the same location.

you can't choose who plays the fool

This was my first make of 2017, which was inspired by a need for a looser dress with a front opening.  I hadn't quite seen a pattern that was exactly what I wanted so I was debating between making a Green Bee Pearl Shift (view B with buttons) or extending the placket and adding buttons to either a Wiksten Tova dress or a Liesl and Co Gallery dress.

However, I then saw a flannel Helmi dress by Randomly Happy and my plans changed.  I'd seen the Helmi pattern on the Named Patterns site, but had disregarded it.  I think this was a case of not being able to picture the pattern in a different fabric choice than the sample.  The flannel Helmi, though, was right up my alley.  As the pattern had all the features that I needed, I switched course and plunged in.

I'd been watching a lot of the Great British Sewing Bee so was really excited to try my darndest at pattern matching, to beautifully place the pattern on my lovely Nani Iro brushed cotton, and to use quality seam finishes.  Unfortunately, I was also very sleep deprived and working with a deadline.  So here's how those goals turned out:

1/ Pattern matching: I did a great job at matching most of the back waist seam.

The other seams: not so much.  I recut the left front bodice in an attempt to get a better pattern match once I realized that I'd matched the front bodice pieces along the wrong line.  It was indeed better the second time around but is now just off enough to be really noticeable.  The long repeat on this fabric meant that I ended up using about 5 yards in my failed efforts to pattern match.

2/ Pattern placement: I repeatedly decided that I wanted to avoid having the largest floral cluster down the middle of the dress and... ended up cutting the front pieces with the largest floral cluster smack in the middle of the dress.  I can only blame this on sleep deprivation.

3/ Quality seam finishes: I bias bound or Hong Kong finished all the seams which added dramatically to the time needed to make this dress.

It also meant that, when I realized that I had positioned added in-seam pockets way too low, the amount of unpicking required was insurmountable and I left them as-is.  Who cares that I effectively have to stretch to get my hand in my pocket?  Had I unpicked all that bias binding, I certainly would not have made deadline.

As it was I barely made deadline, and only did so because I wore it without having finished the top button (on the band collar) or some hand-sewing.

Nonetheless, I'm delighted with this dress.  Maybe it was partially because it felt so good to carve out time to do something creative, but I also learned how to do a type of collar and overcame my nerves about button holes.  (I had no time to be nervous about them and it turned out that they weren't that hard.)

Pattern: Helmi Tunic Dress by Named Patterns
Fabric: Nani Iro Brushed Cotton Little Letter from Red Beauty Textiles (now sold out)
Thread: Gutermann
Buttons: purchased at Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics
Needles: Universal 80/12
Modifications: Added in-seam pockets (using tutorial from By Hand London); bias bound/ Hong Kong finished seams throughout (using this tutorial from JuJu Vail for the Hong Kong finishes).
Things I'll change next time: Higher pockets!  And maybe a longer skirt.  Use wider bias tape for shoulder seam allowances.  Wash off button hole placement marks before using fray check.

the streetlights, not the stars, now

Let this serve as a warning to any parents planning on "productive quiet time" for their overactive child:

11-year-old girl: The worst part about my week was yesterday when I had to sit in my bed all day and knit! Just knit. Or read. Knit or read. But just sit in my bed and only knit or read!

HEB: Hey, hey, hey: knitting isn't bad. Why would that be the worst part of your week?

11yog: Knitting is torture! When all you can do is knit and the whole house is silent, it's the worst thing in the world!

whatever name it's got, it's got me circling

note to self: Think through whether color-block raglan sleeves can be knit in the round before you knit the body and sleeves of the sweater in different colors. Although, really, just having that thought process before the join round would be an improvement next time.