Once again, I opted to prioritize hiking over sewing this weekend. And that means new jumpy pictures!

Hmm.  I should really learn some new jumps. But oh how I love a good jumpy picture. So much better than standing pictures.

Anyway, I did manage to squeeze in a tiny bit of sewing, though as usual with little progress to show for it. I’ve been wanting a graphic print shirtdress for a while now, inspired by a dress I once saw on an employee at a fancy fabric store, and the rendition on the envelope of Simplicity 2403:

Look how smug she looks with her super cool fabric.  I want to outsmug her. As for the fabric store employee, I was crazy about her dress and as she was cutting my fabric (long since forgotten), I asked her whether she had made the dress and if so where she had found the fabric. She responded that she had bought the dress and they didn’t sell the fabric. Boo. After many subsequent months of keeping an eye out for an appropriately modern graphic fabric, surprisingly hard to find in a shirtdress-appropriate weight and drape, I discovered this silk twill on Fabric Mart, and snatched it up immediately, as it had exactly the vibe I was going for and reminded me so much of the dress I had admired. Then clever Toby pointed out that the print was Isaac Mizrahi for Liz Claiborne from 2009. Sharp eye there, T! A little poking around revealed that this same print had been used on a shirtdress in that collection, albeit in cotton poplin.

So now I’m pretty sure that the Claiborne dress is the exact one that the fabric store employee was wearing, and that means that, once again, the Selfish Seamstress has gotten pretty much EXACTLY WHAT SHE WANTS, except that haha, take that! Mine is silk! It’s like a fairy tale in which the evil stepsister comes out on top! (Incidentally, for those who followed the silk vs. acetate saga, the more I sew with it, the more convinced I become that it really is silk.)

I have to admit, I’ve always been a little bit wary of this view of Simplicity 2403:

because I always worry that with the wrong choice of fabric fabric and wrong fit, it could veer off into the territory of FLDS fashion, which isn’t really my style:

I’m still not convinced that this pattern isn’t going to look frumpy on me, but I’m hoping that the graphic print (and the fact that, my goodness, this pattern is a lot more snug than I’ve ever experienced from a Big 4 dress pattern!) will give it some cool. Cool like I work in an office where all the furniture and decor is white and there’s nothing on my desk but an iPad, a bottle of Voss water, a Moleskine notebook, and some very sharp pencils.

Oh, I guess you want to see the current state of the dress:

It still needs the sleeves, zipper (on the left side), hem, buttons, and sash. I like the collar a lot:

Maybe this will be finished soon. Who knows. Another really busy week up ahead.  Oh, and I may have ordered a Baby Lock Evolution today. Oops.