I fell in love with the design of this pretty V-Neck Dress the moment I saw it on Bootstrap Fashion. Princess seams would mean the perfect fit. Besides, I'd always wanted to wear something like this but often the skirt would be way too small or the bust way too big. And after a few other successes with Bootstrap patterns, I figured, "Why not?!"

The fabric I chose from my stash reminded me of this lovely display of Coleus and Lilies at a local greenhouse.

Speaking of falling in love... A wonderful excerpt from a book I just finished. "The Paris Key" by Juliet Blackwell.

Onward to the construction!

With the limited instructions provided by Bootstrap, I found the assembly of the front and front facing to the shoulder (they are stitched at the neckline, but open at the shoulder) a bit challenging. I had to lay it out and try it because I just could not visualize it. I figured if I had trouble visualizing it (mainly because I hadn't done this before) then likely some of you would too.  I took LOTS of photos. 

On the photo below, the back is at the top, the shoulder seam in the middle and the fronts at the bottom of the frame. This shows the fronts properly attached to the shoulder seam showing fashion side or "right" side of fabric for both back and front and hiding the facing.

Oh my Gods!  We must attach in a way that the seam is sandwiched. Uh, uh... breathe!

See the front facing hiding in the lower right of the frame?

Flip the front piece so that the facing is toward you.

We must place right sides together and have the neck and armscyes match up, so let's open this book and begin!

Opening... slowly, slowly... monster's might jump out, you know!

We are about to get all twisty and Chubby Checker about things. So, hold on to your hats! Notice my hand is cocked and ready to perform a counter clockwise twist. 

Flipped! Twisted! 

Now, match up the shoulder seams on the piece which is farthest to the right of the picture. Your right.  That would be the fashion front, not the facing. 

Bootstrap pieces match up so eloquently. Perfectly. Like they were made for each other. Oh, hee hee hee hee!

Notice how the tail of my seam tape is peaking through in the middle? Good job! We're nearly done!

Take care to match up the seam lines. Oh such a lovely thing to match seams. Pleasing to the eye. Maybe we call that Smatching? Seematching? Is that like a water polo match at sea? no, darling, it's a term used for perfectly matched seams!

Pin in place. Maybe a few too many photos... but one can not quite tell in the heat of the moment... is enough enough? Or do we need more... more photos darling! More, more, MORE!

Now, for the oreo cookie, the hit choco sandwich, the mother's cookies that I used to lick the middle out of and throw away the cookies, sandwich. Oh, I mean this is a shoulder seamwich. 

Begin to fold the facing, the unpinned fabric over the wrong side of the back until you meet the other edge of the shoulder seam. This sandwiches the back between the front and front facing.

You're on the right track when you see "a right" + "a wrong" = become two wrongs. Now where does that math add up? Only in sewing? Hmm, me thinks not.

Ha ha! Victory is near sweet! Reuse those pins if you're brave. Or grab 2 more.

Hello seamwich! I eat you for lunch! Hmm... cookies sound better though don't they? Am I channeling Cookie Monster?

See below? The back is between the two front pieces. 

Go sew your seam now, turn it right side out and press. Then repeat on the other side. Pretty cool eh? Took me a bit of time to puzzle that one out. Hope the photos help you!

One of the things I wanted to do with this dress is make it feel professionally made. I loved how the seam tape turned out on my purple 1935 PJ top and loved applying it. So, I thought it was worth the time & effort to sew it on here. Keep in mind, it practically doubled my sewing time because I was sewing each seam 2 times or more depending on how I added it.

And you can see the center back below has it added as an afterthought. I didn't want to top stitch the CB seam, so as a result, I have a wee gap near the top. I'm good with that as long as nothing frays. 

​I just LOVE that hot pink seam tape!

I added it to the front facing also, though let it fly free since I didn't want a top stitched look there and it isn't biased so if I turned it, it would pucker and create unnecessary bumps. 

Fronts and backs of the bodice all stitched together. 

And then, disaster struck. I had this weird cross over folding thing happening and didn't know how to fix it or explain it really. Kelly to the rescue!

See how it puckers and pulls like a sort of belly button. Bizarre!

Since Kelly & I message back & forth and don't usually talk, I sketched my pieces and my problem. 

Here is our conversation sketch that shows my initial issue (red & black) and the fixed (blue).  

What was the problem? I needed to butt the points of the pieces together and leave a wee triangle at the top, rather than placing the front pieces all the way to the edge of the point on the belt. Does that make sense?

Once Kelly & I figured that out, I ripped the seams out, re-placed them leaving appropriate gaps and look!  Utter perfection, just like the tech drawings.

Half way through, I decided this fabric needed at least a skirt lining. It has quite a bit of friction and tooth for a simple shirting cotton. I placed the pinned skirt pieces with the pleats pinned out on the lining fabric and cut away. It was a wild guess that it would work, but worth it. I have a lovely lining that required no pleating or darting whatsoever! 

On the last cap sleeve bootstrap top I made, I think the sleeves worked out to be a bit too low on the arm and thus more restricting than necessary. This time, I took up a deeper hem on the sleeve. 

Isn't that pretty!?

Sigh... Yes. I was lazy and used the aqua thread in my serger. 

You'll notice that I hem the sleeve before it's ever on the garment. Frankly, for a cap sleeve, I find this much less fiddly. And produces a much cleaner result.

Armscye, with side seams open and cap sleeve stitched in. 

I like the look of the top stitching here. And, it works to my advantage by hiding the serged

I was even lazier and curious. I wanted to see what would happen to the skirt if I serged the hems of the lining and the skirt together, then folded up. And you know what? It worked. Hooray!

The back inside of the finished dress. 

The inside front of the finished dress. Notice how I covered up the serging with seam tape at the hem? I wanted pink to show if the wind blew my skirt awry rather than blue serged seams.

Here I am, admiring the weigela in it's 2nd or 3rd blooming this year, a rare and unusual occurrence in the Pacific Northwest. It typically blooms once in May or Late spring. 

​Dude! I match the bush!

"Chest up" mom said. "Hey hey haaaaaaaaaaaay!"  Looks pretty darn good, doesn't it? For as busy a fabric it is. Dang. I really didn't think it would look so busy on when I bought the fabric. Boy is it a whole garden on my body. 

I'm trying to look suave and classy, but inside I'm thinking, "Is my bra showing?"

And this would be why... My hand is covering up the bra that shows. You see, this is not just a bend over and see your toenails type of dress, it's a full on "stand up" and see your toenails. I looked down and could see straight to my feet. STRAIGHT LINE! Yikes! And double Yikes, because this bra is already a plunge bra. Which means it's about as low as I like to go. I'm generally a lot more modest. 

I must either do some surgery on this dress by adding a placket to the front or wear a little tank beneath it. The tank kind of defeats the purpose since I meant the dress to be worn in tropical weather. So, a placket I may go, a placket I may go, hi ho the dairy oh a placket I may go. 

I don't think this is a measurement or design error in bootstrap by any means. Rather, it's more of a design or taste/preference in neckline plunging. When wearing a garment, I typically would not reveal the space where the bridge of a bra would go, unless I had special rigging for my girls in place. 

In my last post, I shared how I split my T-shirt A-line Dress design into just the skirt.  In this post, I'm sharing how I created the top half only as a woven short-sleeved shirt with a peplum. 

I'd been wanting a peplum top since they became popular a few years ago.  But since I have 12" difference between waist:hips or waist:full thigh and My leg shape is wider (saddlebags as they are NOT affectionately dubbed) at the top, didn't want to waste a bunch of fabric trying to get one to fit. Sometimes, the peplum can hit at the wrong spot and make curvy hips look wider. Other times, the fit from waist to hips can be designed for a different body type - straight, pear, triangle, hourglass, etc - than your own. 

Then, I found the cute peplum on Bootstrap and thought it was worth a try after the great fit with my Tea & Crumpet dress.

Long before it resurged in current popularity, I've long seen the peplum used quite frequently in African fashions. It appears to be a way to make a woman look especially feminine. It's a lovely way to use mudcloth, wax batik and the other gorgeous traditional African fabrics.  Also, my body shape is similar to many African women - very curvy, round booty, full thighs. So, I figure I had at least a slim chance of the style looking decent on me. I don't pretend I can look nearly as glamorous and gorgeous as these beauties (who I admire) modeling in the links below, just want to enjoy fun prints and look my best self.

• Wedding Digest Ninja
• African Swag Pinterest Board
• Double Print Peplum Top by Solomek
• We Love West Africa
  
• Pagnifik (I particularly love all these!)
• African Print Wrap Peplum Belt by Sapelle
• Peplum Skirt

With that in mind, I grabbed this lovely mud cloth print that my mom gifted me. I was a little concerned that the print would wear me.  You see, I drown and disappear in large prints. When I wear them, usually, all anyone sees is the garment, loud and clear, walking along as though no wearer is in it.   But, I set to work on the peplum top, keeping in mind that many curvy women before me have worn such a style and not looked wider, but rather more feminine and gorgeous. 

Gosh chalk worked well for marking darts. This fabric really doesn't have a "wrong" side either which was kind of nice. Just need to make sure you have a left and a right or a front and a back!

I don't know about you, but I ALWAYS take my shoe off to "drive" my sewing machine. Can I get a "Woot! Woot!" for all us barefooted #Sewcialists ?

Just like the linen skirt in the last post, I used a bit of interfacing and attached the neckline facing before I sewed in my zipper.

On the day of the photo shoot for this shirt, I helped my mom prepare for our friend's 90th birthday party by smashing flowers, an activity they would do at the party. It's actually called flower pounding and was done on fabric when women were unable to get pretty patterns on fabric or paper. What fun! And fascinating to see which plants produce pigment, which were disastrous (I'm looking at you oriental & day lily), and which were only so so. 

My mom's lipstick plant dropped a bloom and I happened upon it laying on the floor. Since it was a volunteer, I thought I'd try it out. I was fascinated to discover that the bloom pressed out like a baby dragon! What a fun beginning. Can you see her too?

Below we roll pressed dark pink Phlox, Heavenly Bamboo and a Job's Tear (dark, dark royal purple) using one of the cutters similar to a cricut. That produced better results with some plants. I like how we received mirror images of the plants by placing them between 2 pieces of paper. 

Mom, being silly, with a partial load of our flowers. Showing pansy, begonia, marigold, phlox, oriental lily and so many more. We made LOTS! For we really didn't know what to expect and needed to be prepared for party goers to really enjoy themselves.

Lastly, I tried pounding flowers on a cloth sack. Similar to a muslin.  2 colors of Phlox ring, coleus leaves are the boldest you see, next leaf is the red maple.  Finally, crowned with a beautiful pansy and coleus leaves. Isn't it fascinating?

So, here's how the top turned out on me. I think it's quite cute and I'm glad I took the time to line up the pattern at center front. It's lovely how my eye travels from neckline to hemline without sensing an interruption. With all that busy fabric - the block patterns, the marbling, then the colors swirled around on top, it can be really easy to be lost in the crazy pattern. 

Even though it does stop at the widest part of my full thighs, I don't feel this makes my legs or body look wider. In fact, my eye travels from the hemline to the waist and it looks trim and feminine. 

You can begin to see the transition the hemline makes from high to low in the profile view. Interesting how the lines of color line up on the left side of my body between bodice and peplum. I didn't plan that!

The back was the only area of challenge for matching patterns. The CB is a seam and where the zipper was inserted. The peplum has only seams at the sides (I changed the pattern and added a 2nd seam to ensure that I had CF and CB line up as best as possible.  You'll notice that the CB square and flower shape line disappears on the bodice, but is present on the peplum. That got lined up in the center and the bodice simply is a narrower version of the 3 line repeat. It is a little jarring to my eye because of the >>> pattern that runs on the right side of the trio of lines. But when I look at the pattern for alignment across all 3 unique vertical lines, I can see it's quite nice because there's still a sense of alignment.  Can you tell?  Do you think this print wears me? Or does it flatter?

Would I change anything next time? 

I like the length of the cap sleeves, however, they are a bit restricting to me. When I move my arm up, the whole garment lifts up. When I move my arms as I walk, I feel the fabric restricting my full range of motion.  I will consider adding knit sleeves, some sort of insert that allows more motion, or switching this entirely over to knit fabric (I wanted a great T-shirt fit anyway) then omitting the zipper. 

Hey! Hey! Haaaaaaaaaaaaay! This girl is going to be wearing this top quite a bit.