A Dress for Winter

I am here today to tell you all about the dress you didn’t know you needed to read about. A lot of you wonderful readers came to find me for my dressmaking content, and I am sorry to have been so silent with this part of the blog for so long. With the exception of some little seam fixes here and there, I haven’t sewn since last April. I keep wanting to, but then when I have the time it’s not of interest. Lately, I have more motivation to work on a quilt, but just need to find the fabric for it to do anything about that.

We’ve already had snow three times this year, and I thought it would be an appropriate time to show you all this dress I made last February when it snowed while I was making it. Not only did I make the dress during the last snow storm of 2021, I also photographed it then as well. It’s my second make of McCall’s 6958. This time, I made it in the same size with no modifications, I knew I needed less ease than the last time I made it in 2019 (we’ve all put on some pandemic weight haven’t we?) My criteria for a winter dress is that it is black. Years ago I tried to limit wearing my black dresses to the winter, and it’s stuck with me. Something about wearing a black dress in the summer humidity makes me unhappy.

It’s an easy dress to make. My only issue with this one is that I used a thicker interfacing than I usually do for the neck and arms, so it made it a bit stiff here. It seems it has softened some since I washed it, but I have yet to wear it for a second time to know for sure. Maybe I will wear it again this weekend. Another thing since 2020, I have less places to get dressed up for. Once I quit teaching school, I don’t leave my house as often and I find myself in gym clothes and jeans way more than I’d like. Another thing about dressing up these days is that the puppy likes to nip at clothes, and dresses and skirts seem to be her favorite.

I had a lot of fun taking pictures of this dress, anything with jumping shots is sure to make me laugh! (Also, I get plenty of my outtakes from photos for these posts.) And come to think of it, this was the last time I set up my tripod for self pictures! At least I got to mess around in the snow with my camera one day last year. And I got to try out my super cool umbrella that I absolutely love. I have yet to really use it, it’s just too pretty I think. My niece got it for me and I think it’s the coolest umbrella ever!