Grey flannel is dead, long live grey flannel!

I want to take a minute to apologise. Although this is supposed to be a sewing blog with no limitations (besides a slight vintage bent), it has been, so far, a grey flannel and/or shift dresses blog. There are several reasons for this:

1. I have a lot of charcoal grey flannel that needs done with.
2. I think charcoal grey looks good on me.
3. I am working on cake, and for me, shift dresses are cake (even when they are made out of floral linen).
4. My closet skews towards F/W and last S/S I was dying in the Carolina heat without the ability to give up and just wear denim cutoffs and band tees because I am, in fact, a young professional with a job. Shift dresses fill a Carolina shaped hole in my wardrobe when not made out of flannel.

but I also just realized that my favorite dress ever (EVER) is a charcoal grey ~~flannel~~ wool shift dress (found at the Lexington VA Goodwill for $4, like, the day before I needed a dress for a winter formal to which I had totally nothing to wear. I like it because it has short sleeves and a really short skirt.) Seriously. Its bad. Charcoal grey shifts.

But hey! Here\’s another!

This was made using my hacked up and reassembled shift pattern Butterick 4386. This is the last of the grey flannel (omg) and it was actually made in six whole pieces; I cut the bodice and the skirt separately. I did some inside-out darts for coolth (1, 2) and finished it up with an exposed zip for ease and a black ribbon for lack of a black belt handy.

check that zip.

dem drag lines

If you can get past the puckers at the neck (more clipping!!), I have noticed that I think I need to start doing some swayback adjustments to shift dresses. I have less-than-perfect posture and what the sewing world calls a \”prominent derriere\” and you can see the same issue popping up in all my garments. You can see it on the back of the grey shift, and here it is from the side in my shift Mad Men-inspired toile.

pool of fabric resting on my derriere

I\’m adding a swayback adjustment to the pattern I used for the green shift (New Look 6145) after pinning it out on this version and seeing a big difference. I want each of these to be a tried and true pattern, so I think it will be worth it to take some time and figure it all out. I\’m still going to wear these dresses, but my hope is to improve the fit each time I make it. Otherwise, what\’s the point of reusing a pattern?

In conclusion: I am done with the grey flannel. I am not done with New Look 6145 or Butterick 4386. Stay tuned for more repetitive blogging.

1. \”usually facetious.\” p.s. you learned something today.

2. Currently re-reading and I love it so hard.