The Hinterland dress

 It's been 18 months, and still working from home full time. When will we go back to the office is the question of the decade it seems. All those commuting hours I'm saving is going to good use-sewing more clothes! This is the Hinterland dress designed by Sew Liberated, which is the same designer I purchased my Schoolhouse Tunic pattern from. 

The hashtag for the Hinterland dress will come up with thousands of images on Instagram of others who have made this dress. It has a variety of styles to customize it-from sleeveless to 3/4 sleeves, lengths, and buttons or no buttons. Pockets are a part of this dress, which is nice to have. For this project, I chose an indigo linen material. It's lightweight, but heavy enough for fall. The topstitch uses a jeans thread as I like to use contrasting threads when it's appropriate for the fabric. Choosing buttons wasn't easy. I ended up finding faux abalone buttons, although my preference was wood. Of course I found this button website after I completed the dress! Next time...

Check out my Apatite necklace on the last image! Supposedly this stone helps with creativity. Maybe or maybe not, but I'm very pleased with the outcome of this dress. One thing that slowed me down in making this dress is I ripped one of the buttonholes on the placket that was to large to repair without looking terrible. Thankfully, the rip didn't go into the body of the dress, so I just had to re-cut and sew a new placket for the buttonholes. 

Let's talk about buttonholes-they are NOT easy! My machine does them automatically, but if tensions and settings are just perfect, it's a waste of time and thread. I used the entire spool of my jeans thread on top-stitching alone (ran out just as I finished the last step!). I used a blue thread for assembling the pieces to conserve the jeans thread for this project. 

This pattern will definitely be a staple in my DIY wardrobe. I might skip buttons next time however.

2016 Summer Dress for a Tween

Currently, I am enrolled half time to finish my degree, so free time isn't abundant. Once spring break arrived however, I had a plan to do a bit of sewing-my original creative love. I promised my daughter a new summer dress, and so I found a pattern on Etsy to sew her. The pattern is called Ahmelie Bloom Shine Maxi Missy by Pink Fig Designs. It was quite an easy pattern to sew, but I did end up with a lot of scrap fabric to make another project. This is usually a bonus, however, I still try to be conservative when buying fabric for patterns. 

The fabric was purchased from Joann's in my city. I am normally a bit of a fabric snob, but for the amount the pattern needed, and the fact that my daughter is still growing, I decided to be smart about my purchase. This amount of fabric cost me $50 even on sale, but again, I do have a lot of scraps left.