More Amy Butler sewing

I've been on a clothes-sewing kick lately, as opposed to quilting. Although I do have a quilt planned.

Here's a live-human picture of my Amy Butler Anna Tunic. It's better to take pictures outside, but my new neighbor was hanging out in her yard, and our walls are low. I feel silly setting up my camera on timer and posing by myself around my yard:



I had wanted some cropped denim pants for a few years, and I found these on the Target clearance rack for $11 the other day. There was only one pair that I saw, and they happened to fit me perfectly.

I also finished my Favorite Things Prairie Girl dress, also made of Amy Butler fabric. I was really excited about this dress initially, but I'm not as excited about the end result. It's OK, but not quite what I expected.





I like a closer fit, and tying it too tight doesn't really look good. But if you make a smaller size, you may have trouble getting the dress on, since there's no zipper or buttons.



I think maybe a thinner, drapier fabric would have looked nicer, so the skirt would fall more softly.

Mark says I need to get a tan if I'm going to wear that dress. I do look even pastier than usual, I must admit.

Amy Butler Anna Tunic

I recently splurged on this Amy Butler pattern and fabric during the sale at Hip Stitch. The fabric is less orange and more salmon in real life.

It's the Amy Butler Anna Tunic. A few things aren't perfect, such as the armholes being a bit snug. I'm not sure what went wrong there. There doesn't seem to be anything I could have messed up on in that area.



Also, the big, crazy flower pin blends right in. The fabric is so busy that you can't even see it in the photos.



This pattern was fun and fairly easy to make. I feel like most things came out looking nice, including the button area. Closures are usually where I mess things up.



You can leave the flower pin or the belt off. Here it is without the belt:



This pattern can also be made longer in a mini dress, regular dress or a bit shorter of a top.

I'll take better photos on a real person (me) tomorrow if I have time.

Speaking of which, here are people photos of my Favorite Things Prairie Girl top made from vintage linens:





Now I'm off to start on the dress version of this pattern.

Lots of sewing time

My husband's out of town, so I've had lots of sewing time. Unfortunately, he took the camera, so I can only use my cell phone. Strangely, the photos are almost better than with my camera. Can't figure that one out.

In an earlier post, I showed you the Prairie Girl dress from Favorite Things that I am going to make with pretty Amy Butler fabric. Because of my recent mishaps, I was definitely going to make a muslin first.
Last night I realized there's a shirt version in the same pattern, which is just the dress cut shorter. I spied a pretty white/orange/blue/green vintage sheet in my collection and decided to go for it. This killed two birds with one stone: It basically served as my muslin (only change is the dress is longer) and allowed me to make something with all these sheets I've been buying. It was bugging me that I wasn't making use of them fast enough.



For the dress, I'll be doing the ruffled cap sleeve. I like this top a lot, but from the back, it sort of looks like a scrub top a nurse would wear. I think a lot of it's the sleeves.



I was going to make the dickey out of this sheet here, which sort of matched, but then when I tried the top on, I happened to be wearing this green tank that matched well. It brought out the colors better than the second sheet.



Next up is a gathered empire waist top made from this matryoshka print fabric that I bought some time ago. I didn't have much and couldn't figure out what to do with it since it's so wrinkly and doesn't lay flat. I am going to use Simplicity 3750, and I have it all cut out. That was no easy task. I decided the best thing to do was to lay it out on a cardboard cutting mat and pin the fabric stretched out. Then I cut to my best ability and let it shrink back up.