Selfish Sewing Week: Day 1, Cheers!

It's been fun seeing other sewists planning for Selfish Sewing Week. I'm not as ambitious as some and the biggest challenge for me will be to not sew anything for the kids, especially as I've finally found the right ribbing for P's sweater to go with his awesome pants.

I guess the rules don't really exclude sewing for others, so long as some time is spent dedicated to yourself, but I'm going all out on the selfish and putting aside anything else for the next seven days. It's all about me.

So, to planning.... Starting with a coffee (Gran Torino - My Three Girls) I fished out the Lisette pattern that I drafted and cut out about three months ago

 

This will be my first experiment with a Lisette pattern. I wasn't at all tempted by this pattern until I saw some versions pop up in the Flickr pool. The cover picture featuring a short skirt and printed cotton doesn't do it for me at all, but some solid fabric versions like this one, or even a muted pattern like this one had me thinking this could be a dress I'd like.

The fabric I found was in a remnant bin and is described as "denim look rayon". Sounds nasty but it's actually really nice with a fluid drape and a kind of navy/bronze slight sheen. I bought some embroidery thread for the topstitching that matches the bronze cross threads in the fabric.

As to size.... Well after measuring myself I decided it would be a size 16. That just sounded really wrong though, I thought for a bit, remembering how US sizes always were one size bigger than UK/AUS sizes, and I've never been a 16 in my life, usually a 12 up top and maybe a 14 down below at the most.... I remembered my Ottobre oversized dress, then measured myself again. The tape measure hadn't changed it's mind so I started drafting the pattern.

Then I saw a lovely thing. Smack bang in the middle of the pattern was a note saying how many inches of ease was built into the pattern. I held my tape measure at the finished garment size around my middle, decided it would definitely be too baggy and drafted the 14 after all.

I'm sure dress fitting is a more previse science than that, but I am a rank amateur and this is my starting point. And did I mention the fabric only cost $10? And that I've cut a size 3 Music Class Skirt out of the leftover bits? Can't go wrong surely...

Here's another fabric remnant which was too much for just a small person dress, so I thought I'd try a blouse for myself. Is this cheesecloth? I don't know but I suspect that's what it's called. Anyway I was about to open a bottle of wine and didn't have any nice cheese so it didn't want to dwell on the fabric name any longer.

Sizing choice was a little more simple for this one, in that there is nothing I can understand on the page below except 150cm and 170cm and the second happens to be my height. so therefore I have my pattern size just right, don't I?

The pattern is for a grown up version of the little girls blouse from Sassy Girl's Clothes by Yuki Araki

 

I'd already drafted the pattern pieces so all that remained was to cut out the fabric. Keen to test my stripe matching requires red wine theory I  decided I needed to open a bottle of something. The colour of the fabric is more a light Bordeaux red, but I went with a Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz blend instead....

 

I thought a bit about the stripes, sipped a bit, thought a bit more, then realised the pattern was full of pintucks and gathers and it really wasn't going to matter a rat's how I cut it so long as everything was mostly vertical.

 

So that's it for me: One dress, one blouse. I'll get started on some sewing tomorrow.