More Loes Hinse Tank Dresses

It's still hot as blazes here, plus our local "monsoon" season has begun. The rain is welcome, but the moisture is making things a little sticky around here.

As a result, I'm trying to dress for the heat with a couple more dresses from the Loes Hinse Tank Dress pattern. It goes together so easily and it's cut so that bra straps don't show.

It's also a great stash buster, especially now that I've modified the dress to knee length. I can cut a dress out of 2 1/3 yards of 44" wide fabric. That's minimal, and I'm able to use cuts of fabric that I've loved collecting but are a little too short to use for other projects. So far, I've used rayon (see this post), a mystery poly/cotton blend,

 and cotton.

(These were really quick shots that I took just as it started to rain, so I didn't get them on Ms. Acme as well as I would have liked.)

Although I sew and wear synthetics, I'm avoiding them for now since I'm going for breezy comfort.

Each dress has fit a bit differently, depending on fabric weight and fiber content. The basic style lines also allow details to be changed, eliminating the "cookie cutter" look. My favorite of the three is the yellow one due to the elastic placement and drape of the fabric. In spite of some poly, it's very comfortable to wear. The cotton is a little stiff for this pattern but good quality and looks better on me than on the dress form.

I think I'm going to stop with dresses for now and move on to the tank top portion of this marathon. I can fill in some of the holes in my summer wardrobe while it's still warm enough to wear them.

Then I'm taking a brief hiatus from personal sewing so I can do the final stage of the vestments project--the gold stoles. My goal is to have them completed by the first week of September. Who am I kidding? I'll be sewing stuff for me while working on the vestments. But I do need to finish them by September.

Butterick 5362, a Different Type of Tank Dress

Saturday's project was a dress that I've had on my To Do list for quite a while. Long enough that I actually dreamed about it last night. Long enough that when I opened the envelope, the pieces were already cut out,  and the dart had a FBA that was moved to the correct place! I think I must have had it ready to go, then ran out of time last summer.

This is the pattern. I made View C, the red one in the drawing.

I'm not sure if it's even still in print. The copyright is 2009. The dress consists of a front and a back, and has an unusual shape, with the side seams flaring out to a wide skirt.

I remember some discussion about this dress when the pattern came out, along the lines of its potential emphasis on the hip area. Well, yeah, there is that concern. To me it seemed like it really needed a drapey yet weighty fabric to look its best.

I used some more herringbone weave rayon from JoAnn's. Nice, weighty stuff that cost the princely sum of 99 cents a yard. I never saw it at full price so it must have been hidden in the warehouse or something.  Anyway, it was a dream to sew.

My version looks like this:

The upper part of the dress has a nice fit that lays nicely on the upper body. The neckline is open but not too low and the armholes don't show bra straps. Then it tapers out to the skirt and the lower part is quite loose. It's longer on me than on the pattern, but not really a problem. I cut my usual Small/Medium mix and that worked well for me.

It took the afternoon to make, including laying out the fabric and cutting. I made a few slight changes from the pattern instructions, which called for bias binding the neck and armholes. I just serged the raw edges, turned them under and topstitched, a la Loes Hinse. Worked fine, and a heck of a lot faster. I also serged the upper side seams.

All in all, a nice dress with a beach vibe. I'm going to try wearing it tomorrow with a pair of high wedge sandals and a couple of long chains.

Dupioni Silk Part 3

In this post, I'm sharing some of the helpful dupioni comments I've received. I know it can be difficult to keep up with blog posts, not to mention the comments! So, in case you missed them:

Pam~Off The Cuff ~ is a fabulous sewist, blogger, and merchant. She shared this comment and link:

I wash the living "heck" out of all the dupionni I use both for my custom shirts, and garments for me too...I love what water does to silk! Here's the method I've used for over 10 years...
"Distressing" Silk Dupionni ...surely not the only way, just another way :)

Lindsay T prowls and blogs about the Garment District in addition to her own personal blog. Her recommendation:

Try Mood Fabrics. Their online site is run separately from the store, and they specialize in stocking loads of colors in their silk fabrics. That's where I would go if I was doing a color-specific search. 

The Mood site looks promising. The listing is Shantung/dupioni, and there are 5 pages to choose from.

My Canadian friend Duchesse provided a recommendation:

I've spilled wine on my silk, too. there is a marvelous product sold here (Canada) called Wine-Away; works on silk. 

I'll need to check that out. Good stain removal products are always worth adding to the laundry room!

A couple of differing opinions about Silk Baron. I'm not trying to create controversy by passing along either experience, I just felt like people needed to know both the good and the bad. The jury's out IMO, but I may try a test order or two and see what happens.

Pretty Kitty had a positive experience:

I first heard about Silk Baron from Cynthia Guffey. She had samples of clothes made up using her patterns and I commented on the dupionni fabric. She highly recommended Silk Baron. They have a sale or maybe two sales a year on all the roll ends. You have to sign your email up in advance with them to receive a special invite to their sales, but they don't spam you with lots of info. The sale yardage is small, but good for small projects. You may only get a 1/2 yard or a 1 yard piece of 45" fabric, but the quality is superb. The colors are to die for.... or is that to dye for! 

However, Karen didn't:

Not sure if I should post this publicly but my experience with Silk Baron was not good. I bought several yards for an evening suit and it was badly flawed. I was in a time crunch so had no choice but to make the outfit. I made the owner aware of the problem and got no satisfactory response. Actually, the silence was deafening. Leads me to believe they sell an inferior product, hence the low price(s). 

Karen, I think you should share if that was your experience. You presented your situation in a "just the facts" manner which I appreciate.

I hope these comments are useful. Silk dupioni is fun to sew and wear, and relatively easy to care for. I hope you'll try it.

Minty Goodness

There's a reason I'm growing mint in my little patio garden, and this is it:

Mmmm, homemade mojitos! Here's the recipe, as Bacardi recommends:

1 1/2 Oz. Bacardi Superior Rum
Club Soda
12 Mint Leaves (I just use a good size sprig and don't remove the leaves from the stem)
1/2 Lime
2 Tbsp. Simple Syrup or 1 Tbsp. Sugar

Muddle 12 fresh mint leaves and 1/2 a lime. Cover with 2 Tbsp. of simple syrup or 1 Tbsp. of sugar and top with ice. Add 1 1/2 oz of BACARDI Superior Rum and top with Club Soda. Stir well and garnish with a lime wedge and sprig of mint.

The chocolate mint that I'm growing is rather mild, so I use more mint than the recipe calls for. Otherwise, that's it. A refreshing beverage for a summer evening. I bet it would even be good without any rum in it.

Loes Hinse Tank Dress, Version 1

I've been mad for tank tops this summer, but I also wanted a simple dress that I could wear in the heat and be comfortable, yet somewhat put together.

My solution is the Loes Hinse Tank Dress Group. It's been out for a number of years, but I just got around to tracing it recently. I sewed it up Saturday and wore it around the house afterwards. I liked wearing it so much that I retraced an improved version and cut out a second dress that night before going to bed. Hopefully, you'll be seeing that one soon.

The first tracing was my usual for Loes Hinse, Medium from neck through armsyces, then Large the rest of the way. It looked a little long in the torso, so I folded out 1" in the chest . When I cut into the fabric, I allowed an additional 1" at the side seams for "insurance." This is an old Sandra Betzina trick, and I did it for a couple of reasons. I'm short waisted and my "hip area" falls higher on me than pattern drafting standards, even for petites. Also, Loes designs with a European fit, so sometimes her patterns don't allow quite as much ease as I feel comfortable with. Nobody needs to know what size I'm sewing anyway--whatever works for me is right...for me, that is. Isn't that part of why we sew? For what it's worth, I wear a 10 or Medium in most RTW.

It was wearable sewn per the original pattern, but I little snug for casual wearing in the desert heat, meaning no shapewear, no pantyhose, just the bare essentials. As a result, I ended up using 1/4" of my seam insurance at each seam (1" total). I also cut off about 10 1/2" of length so it falls right above the knee.  I noticed that the neckline was a bit high and tight fitting over the head, but that was my fault. I traced the view with the crew neck, when what I really wanted was the scoop neck. My bad. I also felt that the elastic shirring could be a little higher on my body even though I'd already made that 1" torso length adjustment. My revised tracing takes all of these tweaks into account, plus a little additional shaping in the bust area. I also marked the tank top length so I can use the pattern for those as well.

The fabric is faux batik rayon from JoAnn's. I don't remember when I bought it, but I'm amazed at how nice it is. Nice weight, very drapy, and it has a herringbone weave like Tommy Bahama clothing. I wish JoAnn's had quality like this all the time; it's lovely stuff.

Here's a close up of the necklace. It's one that I made a few years back. Despite its simplicity, it's a favorite and gets worn a lot. You can also see the weave of the fabric.

Dupioni Silk, Part 2

The vestment project has involved a lot of shopping for fabric since there wasn't enough yardage to make 2 complete sets. I've done a lot of sourcing as a result.

The original fabrics came from Satin Moon Fabrics in San Francisco, and that's where I ultimately bought the rest of the dark green for the chasuble I completed recently. As shams noted, this isn't the first place to consider when buying dupioni. I so agree! But I didn't make the original purchase and sometimes you have to play the hand you're dealt. Although they're not really set up for off-site purchasing, they were really great to work with once I was able to reach them by phone. They suggested I mail them a swatch of the original fabric, and then they called me back the same day they received it, a Saturday afternoon. The package was mailed out on Monday and I was able to get the project finished by the following Saturday.

Because I wasn't sure I'd be able to get the right green from Satin Moon, I had also sourced a few other places. Do you know how many colors of green dupioni there are? 100s, I tell you.

I started with an internet search of all the usual suspects: Thai Silks, Gorgeous Fabrics, Waechter's, and Emma OneSock among others. These are all great fabric sources but didn't have what I was looking for this time.

I also tried some brick and mortar stores when I was in Chicago this spring and was able to find the chartreuse at Fishman's. It washed up exactly like the piece from Satin Moon so that was easy. But unfortunately, they didn't have a suitable green.

I also looked into a couple of new sources, Silk Baron and New York Fashion Center Fabrics.

Silk Baron came highly recommended by Patti F., who had purchased from them before. Great selection of colors and a well organized web site. Andrew, the owner, also provided wonderful personal service on the phone and email. Although I didn't get the dupioni from him this time, Silk Baron is definitely on my short list for a future purchase.

New York Fashion Center Fabrics was sourced through Google, and a resource that I'll need to try again. They carry a broad selection of dupioni and lots of other fabrics too. They responded super quickly to my swatch request and had a couple of colors that were extremely close to what I was looking for.

By the way, Pam Erny of Fashion Sewing Supply sent me a link to her blog on how she launders silk dupioni. It originally appeared on August 10, 2010. Pam posts some great tutorials, and this one is no exception.

Oh yeah, another addition to yesterday's post. I'm pretty sure the church will be dry cleaning from here on out. That's fine IMO, because you can't ever tell how people will do laundry. For example, DH believes that clothes aren't really clean unless bleach and hot water are involved. Needless to say, we each launder our own clothes!! But back to church. One of the priests told me that the first time he wore the gold chasuble, wine was spilled on it. No stain because of the prewashing, though. So consider running the yardage through the wash even if the final garment is something you'll dry clean. It may save you a lot of grief.

Dupioni Silk, Part 1

I love sewing with dupioni silk. It sews up easily because it's not as slick as many silks tend to be. And it's just plain nice to touch and handle.

I've washed every dupioni I've worked with. This accomplishes a couple of things--it eliminates the chance of water spotting when sewing or wearing the the garment, and it results in a more "quiet" sheen while still retaining the shimmer of the fiber. IMO, it also provides a more luxurious hand--the texture of unwashed dupioni can be a bit crispy while the washed has more drape.

Of course, you can always have a surprise when washing it. Remember the color shift I experienced when washing these?

The pale chartreuse piece on the right became orange-gold. I'd rather have this happen before making and wearing the garment instead of after!

I wash and dry my yardage by machine after serging the raw edges to prevent fraying. I have a front loader, but other than that, I really don't baby it much. Normal cycle, cold water (I wash almost everything with cold), liquid Tide, Downy Free. And a Color Catcher to pick up any loose dye molecules in the water. Once washed, I throw it in the dryer, normal cycle. I press the yardage after it's dry to smooth it out, then it's ready for cutting.

My Jewelry Exchange Experience

My church recently held a fund-raiser for the new wing that was completed last year. We're still raising money to pay off the construction loan, and a couple of the parishioners came up with the idea of a jewelry exchange. Clear out the jewelry box of things you no longer want, bring it to the event, and pick up other things that are new to you. Also wine and potluck snacks while you shop. All this for a donation to the building fund.

I brought a sack full of items, including loose beads, earrings, necklaces, and some books on jewelry-making.

I ended up bringing home a sack full of new things.

Necklaces:

Bracelets and a watch:

I've been wanting an antique gold/brass watch. Yay!

Pins:

It's obvious I'm a cat person, isn't it?

Earrings and charms:

Yes, lots of crosses. But what do you expect at a church event? I got several sterling pieces, always popular here in the Southwest. Also jade, cloisonne and some brand names as well.  I gathered up quite a bit, but there was plenty to go around for everyone. The leftover pieces were donated to the local humane society thrift store.

I hope the fundraiser was successful. I know I was generous because I was able to pick up so many nice things and had such a fun time socializing.

Hot Fun in the Summertime

It's cooled down and breezy enough to write out here on the back patio this afternoon. 91 degrees is positively temperate compared with the triple digits we've been experiencing lately. Yes, it's a dry heat and all that, but enough is enough. Supposedly there will be storms tonight, a rare event for us. Let's hope so. We've been enjoying the patio in the evenings once the sun starts setting. Computers and iPads are very convenient for enjoying music and twilight reading outside. We'll be adding some solar lights soon so we can use even more of our outdoor space. And for the fall, a fire pit--once I borrow a truck so I can get it over here. Sometimes I really miss my little Hyundai Santa Fe.

I had a chance to spend several productive hours in the Sewing Cave this weekend. I made another version of Louise Cutting's Pure and Simple Shell, remade a failed sundress into a  skirt, and even traced off Loes Hinse's Tank Dress pattern.

Here's the shell. The colors will work for different seasons. I have a few cardigans that'll coordinate nicely with it, so this one is mainly for the office. I do need an olive pair of pants, though.

And the skirt.

This one was originally a sundress that I made for last winter's trip to Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, I hated it and was tired of trying to make it work as a dress. So yesterday, I removed the elastic, cut it off at the armholes and converted it into a longish summer skirt. And of course, it took longer to remake than to make it from scratch, but that's the nature of remakes, isn't it? That stupid dress had an incredible amount of ease even with my previous efforts at narrowing it down. I ended up taking out another 2 3/4" of ease, and it's still has a flowy fit. But at least I have something I can wear now, because I do like the fabric. I eventually want to make another dress in this style, but I have other patterns that'll work better, including a favorite nightgown (!) pattern that I could modify. Butterick 5225, you are dead to me.

The container garden is doing well. I'm watering just about every day. Several tomatoes have developed, still green though. You can see peek of them with the Pure and Simple Shell, above. The basil and the mint are ready for sampling. I also acquired squash and bean plants from a neighbor who's in the process of moving to South Carolina next month. Talk about hot!

A Long Weekend and a Wadder

Independence day weekend is here, and an extra day off comes with it! DH and I are staying in town, what with fires up North. I've been sewing a bit, although the ending of the Casey Anthony trial has sucked us both in.

First up was another pair of linen TSW Hudson Pants that I cut out last Sunday at Material Girls. This pair was made of beige linen and a bit shorter than the others. When I laid out the pattern, I didn't have quite enough fabric. I was able to "make it work" by folding out 4" of length, so these are more like capri pants than the others. I got them finished Saturday afternoon. Then I wore them Sunday and hated them--much baggier looking than previous pairs. Even after tweaking the fit Sunday afternoon, I still don't like how they look. Into the donation bag they go!

So here's the lesson learned--fabric choice. I used a linen, which I've used before for this pattern. However, this particular piece was heavier and stiffer than the others, causing it to be a bad choice for this style of pant. Oh well. At least I know what not to do with the other, similar piece I have. It will be used for table linens vs. garments. DH loves heavy cloth napkins, and they'll be perfect for that. I hate having a wadder, but the fabric was an ASG acquisition, meaning free or near free. It still bugs to have nothing to show for limited sewing time, though. KWIM?

I think I'll give the pattern a little rest, although I'll continue making warm weather clothes for a while yet. The weather doesn't seriously cool down until late October and sometimes later. Next up is another version of the Cutting Line Designs Pure and Simple Shell. This will be the third one I've made. I also cut it out at Material Girls.