SuperEggplant

Thanks for all your kind words about the milkmaiden dress. I actually like it, and I think Peter’s comments are really funny. It’s a good thing I’m not super sensitive! The deer I’m holding is heavy plastic and was a gift from Kelly. I figured I should have a cow, since it’s the milkmaiden dress, but I don’t have a cow, so I grabbed the next best thing.
Anyway, I promised another green item, so here it is:

I had some fabric left over from this dress so I decided to make another blouse like this one. It’s from the Machiko Kayaki Home Couture book, and I really like the pattern. It’s just a simple little blouse with raglan sleeves.
Okay, I have some more green fabric, but I haven’t cut it out or anything yet, so maybe you will be spared from additions to the green wardrobe for a few days.

And another green dress, this one known as the milkmaiden dress, has been completed!

The pattern is from my latest Machiko Kayaki book purchase: Sewing Lesson. I used fabric I bought in Japan about 8 years ago! I have a few things to say about this dress:
– I had to take in a couple inches on each of the sleeves because the bodice was hanging a bit low. This led to poofier sleeves, but I guess I can smash them down with my hands.
– This was my very first invisible zipper installation. Now, I’ve been sewing for about three decades now, yet I have never put in an invisible zipper. It was a bit of a nightmare. I got a special invisible zipper foot for my machine, but instead of gliding effortlessly over my invisible zipper, it slid over the coil and made me sew the coils down. Oops. I had to use my regular zipper foot, which seemed to work okay, but then I couldn’t figure out how to sew the top and bottom seams down without it being weird.
– Here are Peter’s comments about the dress, in chronological order:
1. “Is that a nightgown?”
2. “Are you going to wear that around?”
3. “It has an Elizabethan style to it. You’d fit right in at the renaissance faire.”
4. “You want me to be honest, don’t you?”
Tune in tomorrow for another installment of the green series!

I went to Kinokuniya again last week and picked up yet another Machiko Kayaki sewing book. This one is called Sewing Lesson, and the ISBN is 4579110935.

The book has a little bit of everything, including dresses, skirts, and blouses.
I’m currently working on the milk maiden dress on the lower right. Yeah, I don’t know what possessed me to try making it, either, since it’s not something I would normally wear, but oh well, it’s good to try new things, right? We’ll see about that!

I’ve had a few people ask me for the dish soap apron pattern. Your wish is my command, so if you desire you can download the PDF pattern here. You’ll notice that since I am too, uh, challenged to figure out anything in photoshop or illustrator, I just drew it out and scanned the puppy. We don’t need no stinkin’ adobe! Now I don’t want to see any nekkid dish soap out there, ya hear?

It’s been really toasty here in Portland; so toasty, in fact, that today I wore a sleeveless top. It’s supposed to be about 20 degrees cooler tomorrow, so all should be well. The town in California we moved from is super hot every day all summer long, so I feel I should not complain about the Portland heat wave. Anyway, hot weather is perfect for the summer skirt, is it not? I made this one over the weekend:

It has some cute details. Too bad you can’t see any of them in the photo, ha ha. The pattern is by Favorite Things, and it is a nice pattern. It’s a flared skirt with 8 panels, and the back waistband is elasticized, which makes the skirt very comfy. There are options for gores or a ruffle at the bottom. I think I’ll be making a few more of these babies!
Now it’s time to head to the basement to cool off and do some more sewing!

I made yet another skirt! It’s from yet another Japanese sewing book! The skirt’s a bit of a rump enhancer, and it makes me feel a little puffy and poofy, but it’s fun to wear, and it’s comfy, and those are the two criteria I generally go by for clothing.

Peter is a good sport about taking photos for me, but the photos always seem to be kind of distorted and weird and a little unflattering. The other day I was wearing my sailing skirt, and my friend Wendy said it looks better in person than in the photo. Peter says he has a tough time taking decent photos because my camera is so tiny, and his giant fingers can’t manipulate the little buttons. Anyway, if you could all pretend that the things I make are actually jaw-droppingly stunning in real life, I would really appreciate it.