Weather at work

 I started a new job on Monday and we had this storm roll through on August 27th. This shelf cloud was incredible to watch forming!

 

Some sights from Quarantine

These are some photographs, in reverse order, of some of the sights of the COVID quarantine of 2020 in Northwest Pennsylvania. 

October 10, 2020 Day 215

More funny sign at the local bagel place

October 1, 2020 Day 206

The local voldemart is back to allowing people in both doors instead of one entrance and one exit. You still can't get a lot of cleaning supplies.

the easy peasy tank top dress

When I was a little girl, my mom made me three dresses from tank tops and what at the time was probably a half yard of fabric. I remember one in particular, a blue ribbed tank with a skirt of a red, yellow, and blue ditzy floral seersucker. I remember them as being my favorite summer outfit.

 

So imagine my surprise when I discovered that this is nothing new under the sun, and actually, someone had improved upon it? I wasn't really surprised, more like, oh how cleaver. Wish I'd thought of that sooner. 

I read two tutorials about how to make these,  but the clearest by far was from A Small Snippet's blog about making just the dress I'd had as a child. Of course, for a child, you end up not needing nearly as much yardage for the skirt, and the skirt on my dresses was short because I was playing in them.  Come to think of it, I'm not sure how my mother made the dress so that the waistband wasn't restrictive. I tried making another teeshirt dress with a shirt and an attached skirt, but it just didn't work.  I wanted something breezy and non-binding for a midsummer surgery, and I really wanted these to work. 

Enter elastic thread.

I used my Singer Precision to sew two of these dresses, and I was able to wind the elastic thread on my bobin using the machine bobin winder just like regular thread, no problems. The problem was I now have umpteen bazillion yards of elastic thread because a cone of the stuff was all I could manage to find. Pandemic problems, much? Unless you're planning to make several for yourself, your kids, the nieces, the neighbor's kids, the little Dritz package of elastic thread will suffice. Unless you've got another use for elastic thread in which case, go nuts, buy the big one. 

So, I've convinced you, you want to make one. Excellent. I'm not going to rewrite the tutorial here, but I will add these notes from my making experience that may make your life easier.

Materials you may or may not have on hand

A tank to cut up - As I said, I got mine at WalMart, I paid $3, if that? The fit for the green one is loose, the pink is more snug. 

Fabric yardage - you do need to measure, and you can measure either by using a tape, measuring your waist (or where your bra band is, if that's where you want the skirt to hit), and add half whatever that number is, OR you can go to the fabric store, and wrap yardage off the bolt one and a half times, and have them cut it at that spot at the cutting counter. If you're still confused...
Say a 40 inch waist, which means you add 20 inches to that for a total of 60". Which is roughly 1 and 2/3 yards of fabric. See, I practically did the math for you. There's also nothing saying that you couldn't use more yardage and have a fuller skirt, but I'm not sure why you'd want to? It's a giant tube, so it's not going to flair out at the bottom. 

Elastic thread - essential. Your waistband won't be elastic without it. Trust me. You need that waistband to have some give. Did I mention I had surgery? Did I mention I was ridiculously bloated beforehand? To the point I looked five months pregant? This dress had me comfortably covered. I'm also wearing them post surgery because they don't interfere with the incisions.  

Some construction notes - 

- Elastic thread isn't that scarry. It really isn't, and it's going to help you get that dress on after you're done sewing, trust me. 

- I wish I could have tried the tanks on ahead of time (dressing rooms closed, thanks COVID). I wouldn't have bothered with the green one, though it does do a better job of covering everything it's supposed to. The pink one not so much.
The lighting is horrible in this picture, but you can see there's a light colored stripe running around the front of my shoulder. That's where the tank doesn't cover my light pink bra. It's not just this bra, either, it's all of them.

For reference, I'm a 36F, and the tank is a 3X Time and Tru from Wal-Mart. I marked three inches above my natural waist on the tank (with a pin) for the skirt, which also happens to hit my bra band. For the skirt length, I measured my bra band to ankle length, and added about two and a half inches for seam allowance and hemming. Since you cut one of the selvage (woven side) edges off to get your length, I used the finished edge at the top to keep things neat, and hemmed the cut edge - it gave me an excuse to try the blind hem foot.  

- I took the extra step of finishing the inside of the pink floral gown by leaving a big seam allowance of the knit fabric, trimming down the print, and making a casing (French seam) out of the pink knit. On the outside, it looks like I have 1/4 inch elastic at the waist... but as you can see from the inside, it's really that small folded over casing, and three rounds of elastic thread keeping things snug but not too snug. I wore this pink gown to the hospital on surgery day with a little lightweight cardigan, and the waist band stayed up and out of the way of the incisions, which was the overall goal.

- The back seam of the dress is the only seam - aside from the bottom hem - that doesn't use the elastic thread in the bobbin. I wish I would have taken the five seconds to finish the raw edge of the back seam - it's just a nicer presentation, and it really is more comfortable to wear. 

 The tutorial I followed said a vent for a maxi dress was optional.
Hah.
 Save yourself the trouble. Put in a vent.
It doesn't even have to be that long,  I think the vent in this one is 10 inches at most? Just remember to mark how long you want the vent to come up from the raw hem edge, reinforce the top of the vent, and stitch the edges of the vent down. I did the back seam first, and back stitched at the top of the vent. I then clipped the seam allowance so that the vent edges were separate from the back seam and rolled them under, and I top stitched up one side and down the other, back stitching at the top of the vent. Remember how I said I was lazy? I should have finished the back seams while I was at it, and just reinforced the top of the vent while I had everything turned under. Alas. 

Last but not least. I don't have a picture of the waistband that you make out of the leftover bit of fabric you cut off the edge of the fabric. I end up tying them in a square knot because they're not long enough to make a bow. They also don't stay in place that well. I'm seriously considering making belt loops, either out of fabric or using some crochet cotton and making a little crochet chain I can stitch to the sides to keep the belt in place. Why the belt? It coveres the join, and it does make the dress look more finished. 

gym-ish shorts

I love these shorts. My mother says they look like pajamas and I shouldn't wear them out of the house... this may have something to do with my choices of fabric. Regardless, I sort of don't care what she thinks about it because they are so comfortable. They've been made for a while now, but I haven't gotten around to posting about them because life? COVID? They're probably two years old, maybe three. 

These shorts [for me, at least] fall into the category of Things-I-Can-Make-With-a-Yard-of-Fabric, or conversely 3/4 of a yard of this and half a yard of that. And some very rando bias tape. Something else I love about these shorts is that there is no pattern - shut the front door, I know! Here's the however because I can see you've already decided you don't want to bother without a paper pattern because anything without a paper pattern is too hard. If you have any kind of straight ruler, a measuring tape, a bowl, and either a few brown paper bags from TJ's or WF or a roll of wrapping paper, you, too, can do this. Pinky promise.

Some things to note:

If you're liking the shorts idea but don't really want your shorts to wrap around, check out this pattern from Purl Soho City Gym Shorts

I mashed up two patterns to do this; the instructions and pattern from a pair of shorts designed by Tara Miller and published in the Stitch Magazine originally and the measurement instructions for these Tap Pants [which I also have made]. I made the tap pants first, and then adjusted the tap pants pattern so that it had the lines I wanted for the gym shorts [tulip shorts, boudoir shorts, seriously, these things go by many names]. The Miller design wants you to cut out out the front fold over bit as two pieces, so that there is a side seam. If you follow the original, you can add pockets. Don't get me wrong, I love me some pockets. At this juncutre, I didn't want a side seam, especiallynot when I planned to use a solid for the back and sides where the seam would be obvious. The blue rose print would hide a side seam better. 

Making the side panel and back panel into one is simple enough. If the pieces are already cut out, simply fold the seam allowance bit over (if you're the type to include a seam allowance in a paper pattern - I am, I never remember to put it back in!) and tape the edges together, or if you're feeling very bold and daring, lay the two pieces down together on the fabric with the edges lined up and pin them to the fabric to cut out the pieces. You make have made a pattern alignment mark, such as commercial patterns have notches so you know where to line things up. That should help. 

And that's it! This doesn't really change the construction of the shorts, only that you've eliminated two side seams.