Progress is slow

Well, I kind of quasi-finished my Liverpool shirtdress over the weekend, but now I think I need to turn it back into a tunic? I know these are horrible pictures (are any of my pictures not horrible?) but maybe you get some idea of what's going on.

I wanted to use my Liberty cotton from Target and put a little sassy Western twist on it. So I piped the front placket and the pocket flaps and I put snazzy snaps up the front instead of covered buttons.

Sounds good so far.

Except my piping technique totally stunk it up and I had to redo the pockets. Piping tips will be coming up in a later post, hopefully, if I remember to do it, because I finally figured out what I was doing wrong and it only took one word to remind me.

Anyhoodle, I finally fixed the pockets but then when I tried on the dress I thought maybe they were too far to the side? And....maybe they made the dress look a little cartoony? So I took them off. Which is where we are today. No pockets.


And you know what? Without pockets I think the dress looks like a housecoat Alice from the Brady Bunch would wear. The pockets make it snappy, but I'm just not sure I'm going to wear a western-styled shirtdress at all. I believe I may be more of a tunic-over-bermudas kind of girl. So I think about six inches of this baby will be lopped off in the near future. I will say, though, that Amy Butler does not disappoint with fit. This baby fits perfectly, just exactly how I like it and not at all like some of the Big 4 commercial patterns. I've not made a pattern of hers yet that doesn't fit nicely.



Which brings me to my next dilemma. Why is it that the things I sew I don't actually wear? Or rather, why don't I sew things I'm likely to wear?

I think this is part of the root of my problem (sewing funk) from last week. I love to sew, I just don't love to wear the things I sew. Which is I why I took up sewing for children last year, and selling some of it on Etsy. I'm like the opposite of the Selfish Seamstress. I could be called the Self-less Seamstress. I'd rather sew for other people because then the pressure is off me.

I tried to examine this problem a little over the weekend, while I was painting a thousand spindles on my kitchen porch railing.

Here's what I came up with: I wear two types of things about 98% of the time. I wear knits on the top half of my body, and I wear jeans, casual pants, or bermuda shorts on the bottom half. That's my uniform. J Crew, Banana Republic, the Gap with a little Anthropologie sprinkled in for sass.

I think I need to start sewing with this in mind. I need to start working on my technique with knits. I was really kinda happy with how my Junior League dress turned out, so that's a good start. I'm going to change the armhole and neckline facings, but that's no biggee.

Whew. That's a lot of emotional work on top of the physical work of actually sewing, you know? But maybe now I can get on with things and be happier with how they turn out. We'll see. Stay tuned.