Sharon Sews

Back in March (was it really only three months ago?!?) I participated in a sewing challenge with two fellow sewing YouTubers.  We purchased identical fabric from Hawaii Fabric Mart and each of us sewed a  maxi dress using a vintage sewing pattern. For "vintage" we agreed that anything before the year 2000 would work, so we were pretty lax on that requirement.  We also agreed we would not share our pattern or final dress with one another until March 31. On that day we each revealed our pattern choice and maxi on our YouTube channels. Here's the maxi I sewed. I picked McCall's 7127, from 1980, for my maxi dress pattern. I sewed the short dress from this pattern when it was a fairly new release.  Hmmm, does that make me vintage too? :-) I repurchased the pattern a few years ago in a larger size. At the time the size 14 was too large, but lucky for me it's the size I now start with when sewing tops or dresses. As the saying goes, everything old is new again....

It only took me five years, but I sewed this FABULOUS knit maxi dress from the March 2015 BurdaStyle magazine. This was one of the designs I immediately marked when the magazine arrived at my home five years ago. I don't know why it took me so long to finally sew the dress. I think I was just so busy with work during the day, and teaching Zumba classes in the evening, that my sewing time suffered. I'd pull out my stack of BurdaStyle magazines every nine months or so, and bookmark what I wanted to sew. Sometimes I'd change my mind on designs I had marked previously, but never on this maxi!  It is dress number 122.  While it's a bit of a fabric hog, it's quite the flattering design. I thought the way it was styled - with the athletic shoes - was cute. That is why I'm wearing my rose gold (leather!) athletic shoes with my maxi dress. Comfy, cute, and trendy. Although can you say it's a trend when it's been a "look" for the past five yea...

I think it's appropriate that there was rain while I tried to get photos of my rainbow maxi dress. After all, without the rain we wouldn't have rainbows. As soon as I saw this rainbow stripe fabric I knew I was going to use it to sew myself a maxi dress. I found the fabric at Fabrictopia while vacationing with friends in San Antonio, Texas. That vacation feels like a lifetime ago, but it was only six weeks ago!  We had visited Waco (hello Magnolia Market Silos! ) and San Antonio the first week of March, when we were just beginning to hear a lot of talk about Covid-19. By the time we had all returned our homes, the talk was more intense and soon we were all working from home and staying put. Since one-half of the couple traveling with us also loves to sew, it was easy to convince our hubby's to make a stop at Fabrictopia before we hit the road for our return trip home. I didn't take any pics of the fabric store, but did post a fabric haul video, with a peek i...

First things first.  Why did I wait so long to sew this dress?!? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I must be the only one in the sewing world who had not sewn this pattern! Vogue 9253 w as an almost immediate hit when it was released last year, with dozens of beautiful versions filling my blog feed. I shied away from sewing it because of that REALLY deep V!  Having been quite - ahem - blessed since my teen years, I don't always like to draw attention to that part of my body. And let's be honest. I KNEW it would require a full bust adjustment (FBA) and I wasn't sure I knew how to alter this bodice correctly.  So I continued to admire every version I saw, telling myself over and over that my large chest combined with all the weight I've gained would make this a very unflattering look on me. I finally stopped telling myself how horrible it would look on me, and gave myself permission to sew and wear something OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE that would make me HAPPY...

I'm still loving my maxi dresses this season, specifically the two I sewed using McCall's 6559 .  My first version as a gray/white plaid ( blogged about here ) and my next was a black with huge brightly colored flowers on the front ( blogged about here ). I decided I wanted one more go-to maxi dress for the summer sewn out of another large floral print.  Call me crazy but I decided to break the mold and sew an old Diane von Furstenburg pattern I had picked up some time ago - Vogue 1662. The pattern as still factory-folded and my size - yay!   I love that the neckline on the bodice is marked as a "Decollete Neckline".  You don't typically see details like that on patterns any longer. As I was cutting the pattern pieces it occurred to me that I'd need to do an FBA on the bodice.  Rather than slash the vintage pattern apart I decided to use the bodice of McCall's 6559, which I had already altered.  I was curious how much of a difference t...

I'll let the fabric do the talking on this one.  The flowers were centered on the front of the dress, while the back is solid black.I used an ITY border print knit with BIG flowers purchased at Denver Fabrics.  In the bargain section no less - 2 yards of $8. Sweet! Construction was identical to my previous version. You can read all about it, including how I did an FBA, on this post .  2 yards of fabric + 2 hours of sewing time = one fabulous McCall's 6559 maxi dress! **********************************************************************