Anna Hack for Indie Pattern Month 2017

Hey Guys,

Have you ever blogged or read blogs over at The Monthly Stitch?  If you haven't you should hop on over there and check it out.  They have monthly challenges to help give you a little sew-spiration, and once a year they do any entire month dedicated to indie patterns and there are about a billion super enticing prizes.  I posted a couple one-off blogs over there a (couple?) years ago, but never got a post up in time for indie pattern month.  Well this year was going to be the year I participated and this is what I made:

 

The theme of the week is "Hack It" and that's just what I did.  I took the By Hand London Anna Dress and stuck my own self drafted pencil skirt on it.  I had to do a little arranging to get my darts and side seams to line up to Anna's but all in all it wasn't too tough.  I also got super complicated with some stripe manipulation, using medium weight soft cotton shirting but unfortunately in the end I think all that unstable bias led to like thousands of wrinkles. To be fair to my fabric as well though, this was also my first time using this pattern ... and in general this company, and there could just be some legit fitting issues.  For example, I know I'll definitely have to move the side seams if I attempt this again.  They're waaay too far forward on me.  I matched my skirt sloper to them and you can literally see the side seams when you face me straight on.  Again, the stripes don't help this either. Bah!

Not going to lie, it's kind of frustrating after all the stripe matching energy I put into this.  I guess I certainly learned my lesson though. Soft fabric + bias + structure = No.  Just no.  Also... muslins.  Always muslin.  (I'm also open to suggestions if you think there's anything else going on here.)  With that said, you know what?  I fricking put a lot of work into this and I still think it looks good enough to wear to work.  Especially if I throw a cardigan on on top.  So yes, I will be wearing this baby out of the house.  Take that wrinkles, you can't crush my spirit!

Design wise I originally thought I wanted to go for the below the knee sexy-secretary look, but after trying it on I decided that I liked it above the knee better. I think I'm going to call that the southern-sorority-girl look.  Lol.  I think the stripes are ringing a seersucker bell in my head.

I was also a little short on hem length with the below the knee look and there was something about a nice deep hem that I just realllly wanted for this dress so that helped sway my decision.  Finishing wise, the dress is fully lined with a white cotton voile which is how the neckline and arms are finished and I threw a white invisible zip in the back.  

Again, I don't think this is my best work and I certainly don't think that it's going to be prize worthy, but hey, sometimes sewing goes swimmingly and sometimes we just learn lessons, ... but at the very least, we always end up with clothes. Can't hate on that :o). Hope you all had a great week and happy Friyay!

Kten