polka dots and crescent moons

oh hai!  do you like my megan neilson crescent blouse?

because i made it into a dress.

YEAH I DID!!!

spring seemed to overflow with opportunities to share-in & shout-about sewists' offspring.  lemme break it down: nikki's book, tilly's skirt, superheroine missions, tempest's sewalong, heather's sew bossy, but still, when megan put out the call for pattern testers for her stunning breakwater collection, i couldn't tweet fast enough.  i was honored to test the absolutely delicious crescent blouse and one more bit of good goddy goodness i'll show you later on....and let me tell ya, these patterns are DELIGHTFUL.  in fact, they're so good, i felt my first try at the crescent didn't do it near enough justice, so i immediately made the sequel.  megan's tweaking advice in the back of the sa-weet pattern booklet suggested going for a dress.  ah yes, please, i could live in dresses.  Summer.  Is.  The.  BEST.

(well, fall is good too, it's ruggy's birthday season.  also winter, for christmas.  okay everything pretty much rocks except for that half-light-time right after valentine's day and before spring finally hits.  that time suckity suck sucks.)

i simply made the pattern as directed using only the bodice sections.  the sequel you see here is sans collar, but my first go has the sweetest little peter panner you ever saw.  unfortunately, my fabric choice made the collar the only good thing about that run.

to make the skirt portion, i used two very long rectangles of this floaty rayon from fabrics for less.  the owner sam and i marveled over the drape (and i marveled over the price.  you know sam?  sam rocks, he is the nicest man in the garment district.  just ask seam ripped).  

next, i sewed the rectangles together at side seams... the wrong side is very similar, so once i had my skirt tube, i folded the fabric to the inside down to slip length, sewed along that tube fold to create a waist "seam", and attached it at that seam to the bodice.  then i opened up the long side seams to just where the slip hits. 

instead of using elastic, i grabbed this extra leather buckle from my technicolor boucle jacket (or i should say, mommaballoona's boucle jacket, IT LOOKS AMAZING ON HER).  hand stitched them to the waist, and buckled her up...

she moves in the breeze with no worry of a peep show! 

(obviously these were taken in new york, before my secret agent journey to texas, and before spring decided to take a long nap in the east coast.  sending some warm breezy thoughts your way, ruggy...mwah.)