Sewing double (or, the perks of being a lazy blogger)

So this month’s Monthly Stitch challenge is Sewing Double. I guess it could be interpreted in a multitude of ways (and wouldn’t it be awesome if someone was a twin!?) but I imagine most people will be sewing two versions of the same pattern.

And so I give you, McCall’s 5042.

          

Just between you and me, these dresses weren’t sewn this month, or even this year. The cotton sateen fabric was from the Palmerston North Arthur Toye’s closing down sale last November. The fireworks dress was just in time for the Guy Fawkes day fireworks here in Wellington. Shortly afterwards it enjoyed high tea at Martha’s as part of a work Christmas function. And the green spot (not to be outdone) made its debut at the WSBN Christmas picnic.

          

Neither of these dresses has had a huge amount of wear, during the recent less-than-tropical summer. They are sad that daylight savings has ended, and were last seen enjoying some R&R in the back of the wardrobe.

          

But they love to party, and I’m sure they’ll be back as soon as it warms up again.

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Hippy hippy shake

I made Rose Hip tights! These are by the same folks who invented the Dandelion dress, and they are kind of similar – both have a really clever design, obviously drafted by someone with good spatial skills. With the dress, you can see it’s going to be a dress, but with the tights you just have to trust the pattern and jump in with the hope that eventually all will be revealed. And sure enough, it is, and it’s really neat. They come together very quickly. I made the high-rise version, but you can also make low-rise or thigh-high ones. I overlocked the lot, but beware, the heels and gusset come to a point and if you put the overlocked hem the wrong way you can end up with a dog’s breakfast.

This is the wrong way (the hem catches in the stretchy point and stops it stretching):

This is the right way, with the hem safely turned away from the point:

This is the very cool point at the back of the heel that can be colour-blocked (it’s actually pretty invisible in my version). The foot seams run along the top of the feet so you don’t have to walk on them.

And check out my own dog doing a sneaky photo-bomb in that shot!

The pattern comes with very good instructions for sewing with fabrics of different stretchiness. Mine had a 50% stretch horizontally and a 37% stretch vertically. I sewed a size 10 in the waist, 12 in the hip (to fit body measurements of 36 inches and 47 inches). They are super comfortable.

TRAGICALLY, though, they’re too short! The inseam is about 2 inches too short for me. At 5’9″, I should be used to lengthening things, but I didn’t this time. I guess it’s easy to look at a skirt and think ‘that needs a bit more length’ but this pattern is harder, because it doesn’t really look like tights til it’s sewn together. It’s easy enough to add length to for next time, though.

So if anyone wants some awesome comfy black-and-white Rose Hip tights, and roughly matches my measurements (but is 5’6″ tall or less), let me know and I’ll post these worldwide.