I took an hour and cut out a nursing sleeveless dress from Elizabeth Lee’s NC 307. I think the big issue with a number of people saying EL patterns are frumpy is the sizing – it’s generous! I cut out a 4-6 tapering out to a 6-8 at the hip in a dress-length (I didn’t lay a dress pattern under this, I just extended the sideseams, which were slightly a-line, into the length I wanted.) The dress has an almost 1960s feel, with an a-line shape, a big button to close the nursing overlayer and a knee-length hem. I will post a photo when done.
I’m making view 4, which has a curved front hem, somewhat reminiscent of this jacket, which I made from the same fabric last summer. I wouldn’t necessarily wear the jacket over this (though I could), but I liked the overlay on the dress that matched it.
You know how I am about the Five Easy Pieces look. I fantasize about Five Easy Pieces. I think my life would be perfect if I only could live with Five Easy Pieces. When I was pregnant, I had the smallest wardrobe of my life. And I liked it! But I was starting to get sick of it at the end. However, it doesn’t stop me from pretending that if only I could live with Five Easy Pieces (okay, maybe 10…) I could move into that tiny Paris apartment we rented and live there – just like all the other tenants did – without spilling over at the seams.
I digressed. Five Easy Pieces – from last summer, the Hot Patterns Sugar Babe set with the lime green crossdyed linen jacket, a puckered green-and-cream ombre knit tube top and black linen pants, the Christine Jonson Trouser pant, capri length (which is becoming bermuda short length this summer as I really need shorts and capris make me look short and wide). And now, the Elizabeth Lee Nursing Classics 307 dress.
The only failure of the whole thing was (really) the black linen/rayon for the pants, which shrunk up. Alas, they’ll have to become cropped pants or shorts this summer (and I’ll have to make more – OR dye my rayon wide leg pants from Dharma trading and wear those). I had been planning to dye the pants a dark brown, which would look outstanding with this set, actually. Originally I planned to batik them, but that’s not going to happen in the any time near future. When E. is old enough to trust around hot wax (8?) then I’ll do it. But after I dye the pants, THEN they fit into the second August SWAP for this summer.
Okay these need names… last summer’s SWAP, let’s call it Key Lime Inn after what Christine Jonson called that linen. This summer, the aqua and denim SWAP, I’ll call it Delray Blues after Delray Beach, FL. and the later-summer SWAP, the Siena Sunset, after the striped silk for the pants, which I bought in Florence (close enough). The Siena Sunset mini wardrobe features my striped Italian silk pants I made several summers ago, a brown gauze sarong cami with beaded ties at the neckline, a purple Hot Patterns Sugar Babe jacket, and now, the brown rayon wide leg pants blank from Dharma trading, that I’ll dye this weekend.
So I deviated from my Delray Blues mini wardrobe just briefly on this dress. But I’ll be very happy to have the dress at my niece’s baptism in two weeks! And, it does match LAST year’s Key Lime Inn, so that counts, right?
Key Lime Inn. mmm. Doesn’t that just bring to mind that heady warm and salty, slightly briny smell that is unique to the Keys? I think so! It also reminds me of white painted verandas in the afternoon summer heat, a cold beer, and a wedge of cool Key Lime pie. Aaah. Summer. I still have to pat myself on the back for sewing all of that set last summer, with a 3-month old baby!