More Purple: Girl's Easter dress

It started with a library book.  Girl's World, by Jennifer Paganelli.  

I started looking through it with my daughter, and she expressed an interest in one of the dress patterns included in its pages, namely "Mary's Fancy Sash Dress".  

A few quick size and yardage calculations later, I found myself in the fabric store looking for coordinating fabrics that wouldn't immediately alienate a ten-year-old girl who has expressed strong dislike for any colours that she deems "girly".  

I ended up with two nicely coordinating purple quilting blenders:

 I only made one minor change to the pattern, using the bias binding facing the neck and armholes on the outside instead of the inside.


Since the skirt was quite long, I took a 1" deep tuck around the entire skirt.

Beginning 1" above the stitching line for the tuck, I also added three rows of trim, two of 1/4" satin ribbon, and one of 1/2-inch bias binding of the sash material.

Once everything was completed, I had a happy girl in a pretty dress.

Purple Pencil Skirt

Or finally, a postable project.
Well, I finally finished one of the personal projects I've had in mind, the high-waisted pencil skirt from Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing.  I copied the pattern nearly a year ago, I've had the fabric in my stash for even longer, but it finally all came together.

It started with a thrift store find, several metres of a purple-grey suiting-weight satin-weave mystery fabric in a shade somewhere between dark slate blue and muted purple.  It might be wool, it might be acrylic or polyester, but I liked the hand and the colour (and the price, of course, appealed to my Dutch sensibilities).  I made up the skirt in a straight size 16, with only minor alterations (shortening the back darts and moving the front darts to a more flattering position for me).  I also opted to forgo the high-waisted look in favour of a straight 1-1/2 inch (3.8 cm) band.

The hardest part was trying to match thread and zipper, since the colour is not really a fashionable shade right now. I finally opted for dark grey.  Oh, and trying to work around a series of regular holes along the centre fold of the fabric, which had probably been a mill end.

This is definitely a skirt for wear with heels, and if I were making it for someone with even slightly shorter legs, I would definitely either shorten the skirt or put in a deeper hem, since it hits me (with a 33-inch/83 cm inseam) just below mid-calf.  The other issue I have is that the hem tends to bind my stride a bit. I will wear it as is for a while, but I'm thinking I will either need to shorten it a bit, or add a vent to the centre back seam.