As promised in my previous post, here's this year's outfit for the annual 'Dr-Seuss's-birthday-celebration-and-definitely-not-my-birthday-honest-guvnor' meal some friends and I do, annually. Every year. Yes. It's also my submission for Scruffy Badger Time's Polka Dot Frock Fest - New Look 6000. More details about the make at the bottom of this post.
Last year, my lovely mates surprised me with the above pair of Green Eggs and Ham converse hi-tops...and some daffodils and a leek for St. David's Day (I'm not Welsh, but I am British and born in Edinburgh so I celebrate all our national/saints' days).
For those of you who follow me on Twitter and Instagram, you'll notice the front door is still 'illegal' sunshine yellow....almost 2 weeks now and I still haven't been caught/told off. Ssssh, it'll be our secret.
No Seussical poetry from me this year, instead a couple of song & dance routines penned by the great man himself found in the fabulous but scary/surreal, The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T.
If you're a Simpson's fan and haven't seen this movie you really must, the hero kid is called Bart and his sworn enemy, Dr. Terwilliker. Sounds an awful lot like Terwilliger, don't you think?
And if you like movie costuming, academy award winning Jean Louis made some beauties for the film.....check out the half suit, half shoulderless combo Mary Healy's wearing very briefly at the end of the following clip.
Aaaanyway, this is the song I sing most morning's whilst being dressed by my team of stylists.....in my dreams. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Do-Mi-Do-Duds:
Remind you of anything? This perhaps.
Oh darn it, I can't just show you one song from the movie without showing you this one too....it's Get Together Weather:
OK, down to the Do-Mi-Do-Dots frock.
Scruffy Badger Time organised the Polka Dot Frock Fest for February (and I almost finished before the month was up, just not quite). Check out everyone else's lovely creations in the Polka Dot Frock Fest Flickr Group.
The instructions were to make a polka dot (or dotty...a few of us are rebels) version of New Look 6000, which as you can see from my pattern is actually known as 0110 here in Arizona:
The only problem/challenge for me was the pattern stops at a size 16. Perhaps New Look have done their bean counting and worked out fat chicks like me don't tend to buy fitted shift dress patterns.
So I had to grade it up from a 16 to a 20 at the neckline, 22 from the bottom of the armsyche down, to a 24 at the hip downward. Because of this I stuck with the basic shift dress this time, I wasn't brave enough the grade up the side gathering ones. Perhaps next time.
Additional adjustments I made for my figure is I've worked out these style of dresses always run high at the back centre neckline and tend to jut out between my shoulder blades. So I made the neckline a deeper scoop and shortened the zip. To also compensate for my 'weird back' (or perhaps it's shallow shoulders), instead of cutting the fabric at the centre back vertically, I angled the line toward the outside from the waist up so that at the neckline I had reduced each side of the zip by 1/2". I hope all makes some sense.
The grading up of the basic shift pattern from 16 to 20-24 was pretty straighforward, the printed pattern has almost equal size-ups from 10-12-14-16 so it was easy to carry that on. The only problem I had was sizing up the sleeves and armsyche....the fit is not perfect on the bodice, but compared to some of the dresses I've done in the past that gape horribly at the neckline and are too roomy across the bust, it's not bad. See it pulling a little at the bottom of the armsyche though.....yes, I know....I should have made a muslin ;) Life's too short haha.
Oh and the final adjustment I made was to slope sides in an inch on each side from about 4 inches above the bottom hemline to make the skirt more of a wiggle one:
And yes, I know I shouldn't have taken the photos in the afternoon sun, should have waited till 5ish....but things to do, people to see, EastEnders episodes to catch up on (nearly there, Phil has just crawled out of the inspection pit not dead).
I also still seem to be addicted to weird 60s posing....I give you Exhibit A:
Mind you, the old showgirl in me came out after this:
Such a poser.
The Facts
Fabric: 2.5 yds Jo-Ann's Doodles Cord Multi-coloured Circles (with coupon) $19.49 (12.95).
Patterns: New Look 6000.
Notions: Zip and interfacing from stash, thread.
Time to complete: 9 hours.
First worn: 1st March 2013.
Wear again? Yep, first on Saturday night for Dr Seuss's Birthday celebratory meal.
OK, so that's another Sew Along garment completed....it's onwards into March people, which means it's BOWIE TIME! (Not to be confused with Hammer Time).
And if you hadn't spotted it on the interwebs last night, the new album The Next Day available from 8th onwards depending on your country......well you can listen to it RIGHT NOW! Go to iTunes and you can stream it to sew along to. HOW FAB IS THAT?!
I'll be back tomorrow with some more Bowie goodies you can sew along to or find inspiration from.....so exciting!
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