pattern junkie

Inexplicable Obsessions

I think I've picked my next sewing project.  I've had Simplicity 9030 for a while now, but I'm suddenly inspired to make it.

I love the simple A-line silhouette and front zipper (it looks like it'll be easy to construct).  But what I really love is that collar: floppy, huge, 70s-era, almost as big as the model's head.  The collar flaps may actually double as radio antennas or wings, much like The Flying Nun's habit.

Sewing patterns with big collars are one of those things I can't seem to pass up.  (Bundt cakes, odd pudding recipes and bad thrift store art also fall into this category.)  It almost killed me to list Simplicity 9026 in my etsy shop: those collars could double as ski slopes.  Someday, somewhere, I'll find it in a B34!

I can't explain why I've got a weakness for big collars -- but really, who CAN explain the mysteries of love?

I'm planning on making the dress in a midi-length with some retro-ish cotton I have.  It's a light grass green with a pattern like iron scrollwork in chocolate brown.  Of course, I also planned to make it in time for Thanksgiving dinner, which seems unlikely considering that's now only about 24 hours away.  It's probably for the best -- that amazing collar is probably a gravy magnet.

In other news, Hot Patterns is having a buy one, get one free sale for Thanksgiving.  I may have to get those gauchos I was mulling over after all...

Revenge of the Gauchos

They're BACK.

Gauchos.  Culottes.  Pantskirts.  Call them what you will, but Hot Patterns has just come out with their new fall patterns, and there's a pair right there.

Part of me thinks they're silly.  Part of me thinks they're cool.  (This means that all of me wants to buy the pattern, even though fitting multi-panel pants like that could be a nightmare.)

Usually I shy away from gauchos, but I love the swirly quality of these.  They look like they'd be a blast to wear.  But again, the actual MAKING of them...you'd have to do a muslin to get the fit right, of course, and it seems like all those panels would make fitting even harder than usual.  Unless...unless all those panels actually give you more options to play with.  I have this rusty-orange wool blend that would be great for these.  (Despite the fact that orange is not my color, I've been obsessed with it lately.  My strategy is to keep it away from my face, letting my legs have all the fun that orange has to offer.)

I don't think I've worn gauchos (and I've decided just now that I'm always going to call them that -- "gauchos" is way more fun to say than "culottes") -- since I was 10 or so.  My mom made me an awesome pair in powder blue -- and my dad, who usually takes no notice of clothes at all, announced that he hated gauchos on principle.  It didn't stop me from wearing them -- this was in the late 70s, after all, when my father was wearing doubleknit suits and rocking an actual PERM, so who was he to give fashion advice?  

Come to think of it, I do have some fabulous powder blue bottomweight in my closet somewhere...