The End of Summer

Ah, August! That month which conjures up both thoughts of long summer days and the excitement of back to school. For me, August always means those sweltering, too hot to handle days that plagued Ohio at the peak of summer.

Of course, Florida has months of this type of weather. So I've been sewing up even more summer appropriate pieces to keep up with the heat.

I picked up this appropriately summery printed cotton at JoAnn's earlier this summer and grabbed some red stretch shirting to make coordinating separates.

The blouse is made from Simplicity 3144 which I had originally purchased to make a red shirtwaist dress. I was a bit surprised when it arrived to realize that it was a blouse and skirt pattern, not a dress! Oh, well. It worked out for the best and I did end up making half of the intended project.

The blouse was a pain to make though. I usually stay away from anything with stretch because it can be difficult to wrangle but this fabric was the perfect color and weight so I went against my better judgement. My machine did not appreciate it. In fact, the button holes turned out so bad that I left them closed and just sewed decorative buttons on top. This blouse actually closes with snaps. I have a vintage dress that has the same feature so we'll go with it's "authentic".

The skirt pattern I made from Butterick 6309 which is a suit pattern with a rather asymmetric neckline. Anyways, it has extra volume in the front but is slimmer in the back. The challenge in the skirt was print matching. I was able to do an awesome job print matching on the center front but I had to do some piecing and did not have enough fabric to even attempt print matching on the back.

 Note to self: just get ride of the seam next time and save yourself a lot of drama. I had originally planned to also make a blouse from the tropical fabric but I don't have a lot yet. I may be able to squeeze out a crop top. (I've been eyeing the Lana crop top pattern but I have to dig out my leftovers and double check my yardage first.)

 I actually felt a bit out of love with this outfit once I finally finished it but a bit of separation was all I needed to fall back in love with it!

 Oh, and I dyed my hair black again and I love it! :D I'm just a dark haired person and that's how it is.

Are you squeezing in a few more summer projects before fall truly hits?