Metamorphic Muslin + summer of basics musings

I made a wearable muslin of the Sew Liberated Metamorphic dress. It's on my Make Nine 2018 list and I am already planning 2 more versions... so I think it's on it's way to being a TNT pattern.

I really like it the wearable muslin. I was so excited to share with the Summer Dress Along participants, that I realized only after I took my photos - one of my favorite spots to prop my phone is now facing a bunch of dead rhododendron blooms.  They lack the Gothic appeal of dead roses and just look a bit dreary. I have to get out in the garden and tidy up soon! 

I am very happy with the way the dress turned out.  I used two vintage plaid cottons from my stash. I thrifted these a few years ago. I had to get creative on this top layer because I had cut out a vintage shirt-dress pattern with the fabric a couple of years ago and it was in a lot of smaller pieces... so the 4 main pieces of the dress became 10 pieces patched together! I think I did alright matching the plaids. Here's the center front 4 pieces converging.

 

I love how it's reversible - not only because you get two choices in the same garment, but also the double layer of fabrics gives a really nice quality and weight to the dress and it's perfectly finished inside and out.

It was so enjoyable to put together.  I was afraid that turning the "burrito method" with the skirts attached already would be difficult - but it was actually very easy.  The construction is quite fun - simple yet very clever.  It creates a fantastic finished garment.  If you are thinking making it and are a beginner or just want some intel on the construction process - Sew Hungry Hippie's weekly blogs are fantastic at coaching you through the process and the Summer Dress Along Facebook Group is super-helpful & supportive if you have questions or just want to share your progress and get inspired by others' makes.

Overall, I consider this wearable muslin a success - but there were some fitting issues that really only crop up when I am sitting down.  I have a fitting problem with tank/sleeveless bodices - being short + having a smaller frame but a bigger bust, my shoulders are narrower than most patterns for the bust size that fits me... so I have to do some fiddling to get things right in both places. 

For a loose-fit sleeveless dress like this that doesn't have any bust darts to alter... I usually just grade between the correct size in the shoulders and larger correct size for the full bust... for this make, I tried going between a 10 and a 14.  Since I have wide hips, I cut the skirt pieces as the largest size and just gathered in the extra fabric so I would have plenty of ease. 

The skirt trick worked perfectly, by the way.  I'm quite happy to have some extra room there. The bodice looks pretty well-fitting when I am standing, but there is still extra room in the top of shoulders that sort of pops up when I sit down.  

Now, I love a garment that has ease in the right places... but shoulder seams are not one of the right places.  Here is a bad photo of what I'm talking about snapped while I was a passenger in a car & first noticed the issue. It's a bit exaggerated here, but you can see how there's just too much fabric at the shoulder. Let's make it grayscale so my bra strap looks artsy instead of gauche. Yeah, still not very classy.

On my next (currently under construction) I tried to solve this by grading between a 14 and a size 8 and took about 1/2" off the top of each shoulder seam to get rid of some of that extra fabric while still keeping a loose fit.

Going into the size 8 at the shoulders/upper bust should also hopefully fix the other fitting issue I have with some oversized garments - that is extra neck gaping fabric. Here is another rather bad photo that tries to show the gape when the upper bust and shoulder part is too wide for me and an awkward triangle of fabric bunches in the middle of my neckline.

Again, this is much more apparent and annoying when I am sitting down.  Since I have a sedentary job, I don't want a dress I can only wear standing up... so I think it is worth making subtle adjustments to refine the fit.  Even with a loose-fitting, unstructured garment, there are so many small details to perfect the fit.

I'm making Metamorphic #2 in two fabrics that I love... I'm confident the fit will be close enough that I've cut into some special fabric. The underdress will be thrifted coppery tobacco brown linen and the hi-lo overdress will be a thrifted vintage linen tablecloth that I dyed with onion skin, eucalyptus, and manzanita..  I love the faded blush color of the natural dye.  I'm just starting to learn about natural dye and this is from my first try.

This was dyed in iron pot and I've heard that iron "saddens" colors. Using the same dye stuffs in an aluminum "pot-as-mordant" produced a bit warmer orange-brown. Here's a cream and tan cotton from the first bath.

After my first use of the dye bath in the aluminum pot, I tried experimenting by pouring it into an iron pot and attempting an eco print with eucalyptus and manzinita - the ecoprint didn't come through very well, so dyed it again allover - and it has a faded blush pinky-brown mottled color now.  I know many dyers strive for an all-over uniform color, but I quite like the variations that came from overdying the ecoprint attempt.

I'll make a post when the dress is done with some more natural dyeing details... as well as notes on another Make Nine that went from pattern hack to serendipity last night.  For now, I'll just close with this:

Summer of Basics in its official form is off my docket.  It sounds like a pretty mellow make-along; but, for some reason, it was really stressing me out to choose 3 things to make for this particular set of parameters.  So I'm just not going to officially participate in it.

I do feel like I am celebrating the spirit of the challenge by creating some really versatile pieces this summer but something about curating 3 pieces was making me anxious and drawing me away from just making what my heart wants to make from day to day... so I am still going to make that black rayon New Look 6305, make my current metamorphic dress and then make the silk noil one... and whatever else I want to this summer... the. end. <3