orange colored purple striped prettygreenpolkadot sky

The last week of Project Sewn, y'all. THE LAST WEEK! HOLY TOLEDO!!! For the final challenge, we were asked to showcase our signature style, specifically: make something that is your strength as a seamstress and is unique to your style.  

Stylewise, I'd brand meself wild, with a side order of classic. Or maybe it's class. That's classy. In that case it's a soupçon‬ of class. A condiment sized portion? YESSSSS. I'M CLASSY LIKE DIJON MUSTARD. 

What lies screaming beneath the coat is definitely the wild side.

Now, if we're talking about my strengths as a seamstress, I'd say my willingness to throw fabric at my dressform and hack away, sans pattern, is a strong point for me. Though others might say this reckless, self taught, no-net abandon is a weakness. Ah, but give me my adventurous delusion! 'Cause that's what I did with this here sunny hue-d Land of Oz gal.  

Tuesday evening found me with two yards of cotton pinned to my dressform, and the following three eves transfigured the Hancock's yardage into this...

TEEHEE AND TRA LAAAAAA!!! Every time I look at this dress, I laugh loud and heartily at myself! That's usually a sign that I like what I'm doing. There's an industrial-strength-sized sense of self deprecating humor in my style. Is it self deprecation if you decree it so yourself? It should be, right? After all, you're calling yourself out on calling yourself out.

Speaking of talking to yourself, those same three nights found Ruggy sadly alone on the couch. I gots some remedy'ing ta do, for real. I LOVES YOU RUGGY. I LOVES YOU MORE THAN SEWING.

TRUTH.

This dress went from maxi to midi to mini... hell, in the beginning, the bust cups were actually angled 90 degrees clockwise, so that the piping ran vertical along the girls. Iffn ya turn your head sideways you can kinda see what they used to look like! Go ahead, no one's watching!

Thursday eve I turned them around and did a little no, let's be real, A VERY LOUD AND EXTREMELY BRATTY HAPPY DANCE. Might have caught some side eye from the sofa. Upon making the shift, I cut along my side seams to morph the cups into this angular strapless dealio. The darts that used to lie at center lower bust swung perfectly into side bust darts. MAGIC.  

Well, no. Not a perfect spell at first, I did rip them out no less than eight times to get them there, cause I'm a type A kinda sewist. (You just hush about them li'l wrinkles. Like the lladybird says, that'll steam out.) The cups are padded, bodice is boned, and they're piped till the cows come home in self made piping... neon pink elastic cord encased in SUPER SLIPPERY bias strips of gold chiffon.

As you do, when you decide to drape a dress from scratch in four nights' time.

  

Gold metal zipper...

And bien sûr, horsehaired satin bias blindstitched hem for twirling! I haz more twirling shots, but my healthily libido'ed photographer, my distant couch lover, was low on the ground for these. Dance pants, anyone?

GODSAKES COVER UP WOMAN. Alrighty! Now for the condiment sized dollop of classy. Le coat. I went with this scrumptious, loverly boiled gray wool to balance out the wild, retina searing color of the dress. Jekyll n Hyde.

Like my split personali-tied style, shears to my head, I'd say my strengths as a sewist are also dual. I love to fly by the seat of my pants, but I also love, love, LOVE to fly through beautifully drafted indie patterns. I know I can make them quickly, even when I veer off the path, because I trust the pattern, and the pattern maker. I started this whole shebang with beloved By Hand London's Victoria blazer, and I'm finishing with Ralph Pink's cocoon coat.

This coat was made on saturday night in three hours. THREE. HOURS. YO.

All of her seams are topstitched in neon pink, which you can see a hint of here. The neckline is where I decided to take a left turn. Rather than encase the edges of the coat in facing, I went raw, and highlighted the sharp corners of the neckline with a plastic placemat.

GOTS TA HAVE A PLACEMAT FOR THE MUSTARD.  AGAIN,  CLASS.

The bits of placemat are handstitched to wool underlining....

And the little gold sew-on studs make a double appearance at the neckline corners-- like those earrings you see on the younguns, where both sides of the ears are pointy. MY NECKLINE IS A HIPSTER SPOCK!

   

Speaking of hip, the ever TRULY classy Nat King Cole's utterly wild "orange colored sky" blared in my skull nonstop throughout my hammerings...and I swear y'all, I think the soundtrack in my head COMMANDED the sun to come out on Sunday. It was almost like spring.

...I even fell asleep, happily, with the tune roaring full blast between my ears.

Like the song says, FLASH! BAM! AAAAAAAAA LA CA ZAM! and goodbye to four weeks of insanity stitching! Woooooeeeee! Cannot believe this is the final round, and cannot believe I'm part of it! Thank you so much for suffering through this endless post, clearly I haz no editing brain left after this month of sewing. It has been a wild rollercoaster ride, and a supercharged inspirational blast from all of the wonderfully talented dames, and I'm thrilled to say... I kind of can't wait to start my next sewing project. That must be love, no?

Head on over to project sewn and view the final three, see which one knocks your socks off!