Friday, November 11, 2011

In Observance of Corduroy Day

How are you celebrating Corduroy Day?

What's that? You've never heard of Corduroy Day? Corduroy Day is celebrated on dates that look most like the vertical lines of corduroy. And today, 11|11|11, is the date that most resembles corduroy EVER. And it just so happens to be my birthday too. I hope everyone has planned accordingly.

What better way to honor the day than to sew something from the fabric?

brown cord dress 1

The pattern is Simplicity-Little Lisette 2063. Little Lisette is a division of Oliver + S. I just can't get enough of those patterns!

The corduroy was a clearance fabric I picked up at Joann's a couple months ago. For the piping detail, I pictured using a subtle tone on tone blue that matched the polka dots. But when I started looking I found this plaid and decided it would be fun and I love the way it turned out! That's one of the benefits of sewing clothes yourself, right? You get to make something a little unexpected, or choose combinations that you wouldn't normally find in a store.

brown cord dress 2

The pattern called for single-fold bias binding on the armholes, but I like the plaid fabric so much, I decided to use it there too. Plus, when I used bias binding on the armholes of this dress I had all kinds of problems, so I thought this would be the easier way to go.

brown cord dress 3

Of course this project didn't come without its problems. That yellow flower button—purely decorative. After fussing with the buttonhole settings on my sewing machine for close to an hour, and making about 15 practice holes on scrap fabric, I put the dress under the needle and it screwed up the stitches halfway through. After much grumbling and seam ripping I tried it again and it jammed up for a second time. At that point, the fabric was chewed up enough that I don't want to try it again for fear that it will be ruined altogether. In the end, my solution was to sew little snaps to the strap and use the button on the outside to hide the chewed up fabric underneath. For what could have been a complete disaster, I feel like it worked out pretty well in the end.

brown cord dress 4

And here are a couple of attempts to take a photo on the little recipient. Two year old models.... *sigh*.

brown cord dress 5

brown cord dress 6

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I'm going to link this up over at Stitched in Color's Celebrate Color. Go check out all the beautiful projects!

7 comments:

  1. Oh, very nice! I like your piping choice.

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  2. That is super cute! Nice job in overcoming the buttonhole problem, too... great solution!

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  3. Very cute - it looks great, and don't worry about the buttonhole - snaps are so much easier!

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  4. So so cute! I just love corduroy.

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  5. Oh this is completely gorgeous! I love that corduroy! And snaps are SO much easier than buttons in my house... I think you'll be glad for that happy mistake later :)

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  6. Very nice and I like the creative button solution. My dd would probably prefer that as it would make it possible for her to remove the jumper herself.

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