Hello everyone! I’m back to share my latest project- my Nautical Birthday dress! Phillip and I decided to make the trip to Santa Cruz for my birthday that we cancelled last year. We were able to get vaccinated last month and were more than a little ready to finally go somewhere (anywhere!). We stayed at a hotel right next to the Boardwalk and spent the weekend checking out antique shops, eating yummy food, and I even got to go to Hart’s Fabric!

The fabric is a custom design that I based on an image I found online of a 1960’s era top that was made from a beach towel. Phillip helped me come up with our own versions of the nautical motifs- we also added a few extra ones to fill out the parts of the design that can’t be seen. I was originally going to have a motif in every diamond, but that ended up being way too busy so I did a semi-random layout and left lots of them blank.

I usually get my fabric printed through Spoonflower but I decided to try out a different custom fabric printing company this time called Carriage House Printery. They have some fabric types that you can’t get on Spoonflower like lawn, stretch poplin, and rayon. I ordered both the lawn and the stretch poplin and decided to go the stretch poplin for this dress. I was very happy with the quality of both and the printing looks great. The only thing you can’t really do there is offer your prints for sale to the public, so I went ahead and uploaded this print to my Spoonflower shop in case anyone would like to order it.

I used the Night and Day Dress pattern from Charm Patterns for this project, though I just did a simple gathered skirt instead of using one of the options in the pattern. I made the square collar version and added some white middy braid to give it a sailor collar look. I tried to be smart and add some solid blue portions to my file to make the collar in the exact shade of turquoise I needed, but unfortunately I miscalculated and didn’t have quite enough. Since I didn’t have time to order more before the trip I had to make do with some quilting cotton that was close enough, but to be honest I think it’s a bit too thick. I decided at the last minute to make a matching belt as well- I think it was a good choice and sort of ties the look together. I happened to have a vintage plastic buckle in my stash that was the right shade. I used this tutorial from Colette Patterns Blog for guidance on making the belt.

I had a little bit of trouble with my initial fitting as I so often do. I made a bodice muslin in size 10 with a D cup based on my measurements but it ended up being a little big in the shoulders. I consulted with some helpful sewists in the Curvy Sewing Collective Facebook group and decided to size down but go up a cup size and that helped. I also made a swayback adjustment, lowered the bust darts by an inch, and took in the front waist darts. I still feel like the shoulders are a tad big, but I added bra strap carriers which really helped hold them up nicely.

We saw our second “Laffin’ Sal” at the Boardwalk (the first one was at the Musee Mecanique in San Francisco). She’s so dang cool! It’s just amazing that she’s survived so many years and still works too! We got to the Boardwalk early to take pictures before there were very many people there- I swear I was wearing a mask the whole time- I just took it off each time I posed for the pictures and made sure we were far from other people.

There were a few things that I would change if I was to sew this again (which I kinda had to live with since I was on a time crunch!). I would use a thinner fabric for the collar- by the time I put in the interfacing and folded it over it was a bit too thick for my liking and it doesn’t quite lay flat in the back (despite my best efforts with my clapper). I would also probably go down yet another size so the collar and shoulders are a bit smaller. I also messed up the order of steps while putting the bodice together and had to finish the armholes with bias binding- rookie mistake! Well, I guess that’s what happens I stay up too late at night sewing! Overall though, I’m really happy with how it turned out and I got lots of compliments on it all day.

Pattern: The Night and Day Dress from Charm Patterns

Fabrics: Retro Nautical Harlequin by MintGreenSewingMachine (that’s me!) in stretch poplin and coordinating Kona cotton for collar and belt (I’m not sure what the color is called)

Trims/Notions: White middy braid for sailor collar trim, vintage plastic buckle for belt, seam binding for the hem, invisible zipper (you can find all of of these these online, or at antique/thrift shops)

Size: 8 with a DD Cup

Modifications: Made a gathered skirt instead of ones in pattern, used an invisible zipper instead of lapped zipper.

Skill Level: Intermediate

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you are all vaccinated and ready for a great summer!