Blissfully blue dress, a sucess!

Funny how a silly garden gnome can lead you to a redo.  After the last post, I literally raced to Fabricland to get some new fabric that wanted  needed to become new&improved casual garden trousers.  No more kevlar-tough microsuede this time, but mid-weight - black, of course - ponte de roma, a poly/rayon/lycra blend knit for you out there not yet familiar with the term.  And, yes, using the same overlapping technique of front&back of a semifitted trouser pattern, I made another pair of one-seam casual home&garden lower limb cover-ups.  I'll spare you the photo -they look just like the gnome's pants.  And feel great.  Honestly, I sometimes wonder why people I even wear jeans - all these seams, all that effort for zippers and topstitching and stuff?!  Why? WHY?!!! My plants don't care!  My husband doesn't care! errr, he does, he does:  and prefers the sleek-as-a-seal no-seam look, if you must know. 

My stingy-sewist nature got its bit of self-gratification when making them up, as I got a mere 1.5 meters of this stuff, and after making a pair of full length pants, still had enough left over for a pair of basic black bike shorts that come nearly down to my knees.  Looking at the bright side, 't makes me a wonderfully cheap sew and sew :))).

In other news, today I accomplished a little sewing revision that I've been meaning to tackle since last summer.  Way back when, I had acquired a very pretty blue-dominated super-light cotton (lawn?), from which I manufactured a (self-drafted) sleeveless top and this BurdaStyle Magazine 06-2008-121 Skirt. And then made a jacket to go over the two, to make them work-worthy.  I like the skirt's double pleats - yet, somehow, every time I donned the outfit, the top+skirt screamed at me, "we want to be a dress"!!! 

Today, I married them, and it's oh so good.  I chopped 4" off the top of the skirt, lifted the shoulders of the top by 5/8", and united them at the hipbone.  That's one happy summer shift dress, and I'm one happy wearer.  I detest: Yes DETEST - waist-constricting stuff in summer.  The united puppy is loose, cool, just delightful, and fun&funky with the doubled pleat which, please notice, no longer rotates to all sorts of weird latitudes the minute I try to walk anywhere ( like, to the elevator?!  am I the only person on earth to suffer from skirt rotation syndrome?!).   And the dress still goes with the jacket.

The jacket, btw, is Burda's #107  from the June 2007 issue. It's a petite pattern, but that's a story for another day.

It's a win!!!!