A great advantage of Southern Hemisphere sewing is that the majority of bloggers live in the other hemisphere. This means that when you are inspired by someone's outfit, you often have months and months for it to
drift upwards in your ridiculously long sewing list perculate in your sewing unconsciousness before it would actually be useful to make the garment.
With only a 3 or so month delay, I really thought I was on the ball here.
Ripple Dandelion at A Sewing Life makes terrific clothes that not only appeal to my aesthetic, and look like the sort of garments that would be very useful and worn-to-death.
In March, she posted a t shirt dress in wool/rayon knit. She didn't seem terribly excited by it, possibly due to Isewedititis, but I was instantly struck by the brilliance of adding an elevated waist seam and slightly fuller skirt to a long sleeved t shirt for an easily sewn, easy to wear winter outfit. (Her cute boots may have had something to do with this instant appeal). She also kindly mentioned her fabric source, FabricMart, and as she had not left the fabric lying around in some stash for a year or so until she made it (my usual tendency), I was able to buy the very same excellent fabric (in 3 colourways) through the wonders of freight forwarding (they do not post to Australia directly). The fabric was still a bargain.
I used my favourite of the moment winter top Vogue 8634, and the skirt from Vogue 8571.
Fortunately for me, the draft seemed quite consistent between the two patterns, and I merely laid the skirt over the t shirt, matching waist lines, and used the horizontal empire cutting line on the top as my joining seam.
Long version -
FabricMart wool/rayon blend knit dark coral
Shorter version -
The Fabric Store merino knit with lycra.
In both versions I self lined the upper bodice, enclosing the raglan and empire waistline seams using the
yoke lining by machine method, and adding elastic to the empire waistline.
Unfortunately I did not stretch this at all in the green front bodice seam, so I have a little rippling here, but not enough to make me unpick the seams and do it again. The self lining means that there is pleasing disguising of any underwear lines or lumps and bumps.
The merino version is thicker fabric (and was 3x the price), and I prefer it, but the wool/rayon version will also be very useful. I have already worn both dresses and they are both warm and comfortable.
I found my
silk petticoat invaluable to prevent adherence of tights to the skirts of the dresses, and there was no static build up using these natural fibres, so I plan for a full silk slip somewhere in my sewing future.
