#wearwhatyousew – Sewing with D

It’s the 12 Days of Christmas at Winter Wear Designs! Have you been following along? Join in the sales, freebies, and giveaways in the Winter Designs Fun Facebook group.

On the 4th day of Christmas, WWD gave to me…a free Split Hem Tee. This is a past freebie you may have missed with a new hack. There’s also a kids version for your mini me! I love the version I sewed last year and decided I needed a warm sweater version.

I was so anxious to start, that I didn’t do all the double checking I needed to for my hack. I pulled out my pattern and went straight to the cutting! Don’t be like me! Haha! I forgot to do some alterations for my thick sweater knit. The sleeves needed a little more room and the length needed an inch or two extra to wear with leggings, but my sweater is super warm with a huge snuggly cowl neck added on. It was easy because Suzanne did a cowl neck hack onto the Magnolia pattern and wrote a blog post about it. I just used her measurements for the cowl piece and instructions! Find her blog post here. Just remember if you have thick fabric and don’t want a big cowl, to shorten your piece.

Thank you for stopping by!

February is the month of love. What better time to sew something just for me? 😆Who am I kidding? I sew for me all the time, which meant I needed to sew something really special!

My husband will be retiring this summer from his job as an Air Force Junior ROTC instructor. He reminded me three weeks ago that the military ball was coming up, so I thought I should make a gown for our last appearance. The ball is similar to prom, but a bit classier. It’s the high school version of a ball, so the only adults are instructors and their wives (not as fun as the real thing, and definitely no alcohol)! The thought of sewing a dress had been in the back of my mind for a few months, but there were other priorities and it didn’t get sewn. The pattern and fabric were already in my stash, so I knew immediately it would be the Crop Dress. My problem was that my fabric is a border print which doesn’t work with a circle skirt. Luckily Suzanne of Winter Wear Designs likes pattern hacks, so I used the top half of the pattern and made a pleated skirt to attach to the waistband.

The top of the dress is a tank requiring knit fabric. Mine is a metallic with not enough stretch for the bands. I ended up binding, rather than banding the armscyes, but still wasn’t completely happy with how it looked. For the neckline I sewed 1/4” lingerie elastic to the edge, then turning it to the inside and coverstitching. That worked like a charm!

For the overlay (or crop top) part of the dress, I chose a scalloped edge stretch lace with nice drape that came from Walmart a while back. It was surprisingly easy to work with just using my sewing machine. After trying the 3/4 sleeves and having trouble with the fit being too small on my shoulders, I cut the cap sleeves instead, but slashed and spread the pattern piece to add fullness for more room. The antique looking button came from an estate sale last summer where I bought a storage box full. Isn’t it perfect for my dress?

The skirt fabric is a thin knit (maybe stretch crepe) that looks a bit like woven with silver embroidery and a slight vertical stretch. I found it at a thrift store and loved it so much, it had to come home with me! Getting the border print as close to my hem as possible without being too short to hem was a real challenge! I picked out so many stitches and sewed the waistband to the skirt at least 15 times! (Not even kidding)! I kept trimming from the top of the skirt until I’d taken off half of the waistband and about 2 1/2” of skirt. There must be an easier way to do this and I vow to find a tutorial before tackling something like this again! The hem has yet to be done, but I had to get the pictures while I could. (Feeling sick for several days put me way behind in all my sewing). Then too many kinks in this project, had me finishing at the eleventh hour! The ball is Friday night so I must go hem my gown! See you next time!