anchors away!

After I made my first Chelsea muslin, I decided that I wanted to make a second one to experiment with fully lining the yoke.  I was not a fan of the partial facing on the v-neck style of my first muslin.  You can't see it from the right side, but it's sort of rough to have a facing flapping around inside your dress and I hate it when partial facings get bunched up or stick out the back.  Apart from something indecent, like getting your skirt caught up in your tights, there is not much worse that thinking you look cute from the front, only to turn around and see that the facing of your garment is sticking out all bunchy in the back.

I contemplated the matter for a while and decided that I need to make yet another practice version before cutting into the linen/cotton fabric I like so well.  Trouble was, I didn't have anything left that I didn't care much about, but would still want to wear if it actually turned out, so I managed to find something on the spur of the moment at Walmart of all places.  My husband and I were tired on Friday evening and wanted to just pop out for something fast and easy, instead of cooking - he suggested Mongolian grill and our favorite one is in this strip mall complex with a Walmart, so after dinner I popped in and scoped out their fabric section.  I laid eyes on this cotton and knew right away that it was perfect for me.

As you can see from this folded picture, it's a teensy bit sheer, so I am lining the yoke with plain white.  Tomorrow, I will decide if I need to worry about lining the skirt too.  I could always wear a slip as an alternative, though.  I am making the whole dress, with the exception of the collar, out of the same print.  The collar will be the very corner of the blue linen I blogged about being in my stash for over a decade.

I think this will be a fun version that could be casually put together for work, or dressed up with some red accessories and cute heels to be date-worthy.  I cut the pattern out this evening and will start sewing tomorrow.  I also organized my whole closet (including my craft stuff, in which I found a few more stash items that could be used for garments) and I got rid of some clothes I don't wear.  I also identified some things I would like to replace with handmade items.  I'm definitely excited about upgrading some jersey knit dresses and skirts in the future.  I have been studying knit sewing a lot lately and have found some good patterns and tutorials, as well as a good supplier for knit fabric. Girl Charlee has lots of very sweet and affordable knits & a blog with good advice and patterns to sew with their fabric.

Tomorrow, more on the latest iteration of Chelsea, plus dreaming about future projects.  For now. Good night.