I've got nothing to wear!

Would something like this be of interest?

you make the "jacket" of something sheer or drapey and wonderful fabric, itgoes together quickly and and looks great. Kayla Kennington does some similar sorts of things with hemmed rectangles that are not really seamed together, but tacked along the "seamline" with decorative stitches: What styles are you most comfortable in? What sort of temperatures are you likely to be experiencing in August where you are?

What are your problem fitting areas?

Kay

Kay, I enjoyed the 'folkwear' design but had to laugh. I'm not really clumsy but we could politely say that I do get distracted. I can just see me slamming one of those drapey, swirling things in a car door or drifting it through the spinach dip. It's a gorgeous creation and would be great if I could wear it standing perfectly still. Otherwise, I think I'd be dangerous. Polly

Yes, Polly, I think you might be right: the dresses seem to have their built-in awkward moments. Apart from this, they are quite charming... ;-)

U.

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No, Polly, you get your fella to fetch your drinks and plate for you. ;-)

What I was really getting at is that a simple design and wonderful fabrics can look very, very dressy without much work or skill needed.

I'm just back from Sew Expo (with my head stuffed with many ideas, of course). Connie Crawford brought along my favorite "casual dressy" outfit, a jeans jacket made of laser cut bridal fabric, and pants. I never would have thought of making a jeans jacket (complete with the waistband) out of something like this:

but itreally looks nice and *very* expensive (she found the fabricas a remnant for under $5!). Someone else had taken this pattern in short form: inserted a spiral cut flounce in matching fabric in the right front seamline, starting at high hip, and going nearly to the hem. It was a simple "shot silk" polyester, and looked very expensive. And someone else had taken a square of sequinned, openwork lace much like or folded it in half, cut a neckline and a front slit, then used black twill tape to stabilize all the cut edges, and finally, stitched the side seams for about an inch to make a simple jacket. Dropped that over a basic dress and again, it looked veryexpensive.

Kay

Ok, I'm just a smaller edition of you... good sturdy peasant stock. Between the Scots and the Bavarians, I just don't do petite.

I've seen that on a couple of women of your size, and I didn't think it was the most flattering I've seen, though it was fun. I did like the matte print version (and I almost never like prints) better than the satin one on her friend. The mostly horizontal neckline didn't do much for either one.

Would you ever wear anything like this if it fit (by which I mean skim fit, not tight when you sit):

?Insert a few godets and you've got your handkerchief hemline. The advantages of a princess seam over a front and back dress are that you can adjust the ease in 6 places over your body, giving you lots of fit opportunities while still keeping the fabric panels on grain so they hang well. The sizing on this line of patterns goes from 87 cm at full bust to 170 cm; the designer specializes in fitting larger women and developed her plus size patterns on women of bust, waist and hip measurements for 3x, then graded down to a 1x and up to 6x. Because she uses a very different grading scheme, the shoulder length just barely changes from size to size, so shoulder seams don't wind up around your elbows. And the cup size for her plus patterns is a D (4" difference between full bust and underbust). Again, because of the princess seamlines to the shoulder, it's easy to change cup size on most of her patterns -- in fact, the shoulder princess is the easiest basic block to fit on anyone. You'd have to lengthen the pattern because she drafts for

5 ft 3 or 4 inches, but that's not a difficult thing.

She also has a pair of little nothing jackets coming out in the May catalog-- single layer serger construction-- that would be good for your lace.

Her latest project is a series of blouse blocks (basic patterns) for cup sizes from A to I (1" difference between full bust and high bust up to 9" difference),

Kayla likes it that way, I think. Threads has had a couple of articles by her:

one that's up as a video tutorial. She's fairly small, small-boned, and canmanage the layers that would make me look like an icebreaker clearing a sea lane. The first things that come to mind when I think formal and summer temperatures are silk, washed rayon, tencel and really nice cottons. I personally don't think satins do much for larger women, especially in photographs where the lighting can't be controlled (I do not need a camera flash to blow out the color on my backside, thankyouverymuch!). I'd probably be looking for the crepe side of a crepe backed satin, fake Fortuny pleating, sandwashed rayon or silk, faille, something on that order.

BTW, have you ever seen this presentation on Fortuny?

Notice the beaded side seam at theend?

Kay

Kay, I love the sites you've mention and marked them as favorites to go back and ahhh. The 'look like an icebreaker' struck a happy memory for me. The U S S Glacier was built in my hometown in 1953 and we knew the fellows who made her and the ones who cleared the ice with her. Thank you - for both. Polly

> is one that's up as a video tutorial. She's fairly small, small-boned, > and can manage the layers that would make me look like an> icebreaker clearing a sea lane.>