The Dress

Sunday was a lovely day in Prince Rupert.  In a place where it rains A LOT you learn to take advantage of the sun.

After talking to my best friend about my unfortunate UFO problem, I felt inspired to try and start finishing things.

One of the garments I have had in waiting was a lovely jumper which I made out of a soft light burgundy corduroy which I purchased on a shopping spree when I went home for Christmas.

Jumpers are something I have begun to love in Prince Rupert.  Being damp, layering is essential here and being able to pull a jumper over my shirts and blouses gives me an extra layer of warmth at the office.  They are also darn cute!

This burgundy jumper was also my first foray in quite a while into vintage sewing.  I last sewed a vintage blouse from an old 1970's pattern of my mum's back in the mid 90's.  It was really cute  and I loved having something that no one else in my school had.

Next came my search for a cute jumper pattern.  I was in a dream world full of old patterns.  I finally settled on this 1968 pattern for a jumper.

So I came home, bought my pattern and set off on the wonderful road of the vintage jumper.  The road was smooth at first and I was feeling pretty confident about my jumper.  The fabric was pretty.  I worked out which way I wanted the nap to lie.  Everything was going smoothly until I finished basting the dress together.
Wha?  I asked myself, what is this reddish-brown bag I have created.  I don't think my jumper is supposed to look like this... Oh wait, it does.

Much to my surprise I had missed one very important item when it comes to this 1960's dress style.  A-Line with no shaping is the name of the game.  So with only two darts at the side of the bust, I essentially had created a bag dress.  Not flattering.  I am a girl who needs a little shaping.

So I decided to add some vertical darts down the front.  How hard can it be?  It is harder than it looks.  After much sewing, unpicking and swearing I finally got the dress to look okay in the bust area while giving me a little shape.  I am still not completely happy with how the darts look but if I mess around with it much more I will ruin the corduroy.  Did I mention that corduroy is not forgiving to mistakes?

So after a week of sewing, 7 weeks of annoyance and procrastination...here is the jumper.

The front

The back

Did I mention the boats?

Finally here is the Random Rupert for this week

Hugh and I went for a walk to get the pictures of the jumper and we came accross the most amazing thing.  Eagles!  There were 14 total all sitting together on the old dock.  2/3 were Bald Eagles and the other 1/3 looked to be Golden Eagles (although I am not expert by any means.  Makes me want to go buy a book!)

Look at all those eagles!

Pretty birds

Hugh caught this one.

Sunday was a good day.