Today, I give you the one-hour tent dress. This was a completely unplanned sewing project, and I'm pretty sure that if I saw this on a hanger in a store, I would dismiss it as shapeless and unflattering. Then again, I so often feel like my signature style is the muu muu, and this muu muu has been saving me from the hotter-than-normal days we've been having here in the Pacific Northwest. It hit 90 degrees on Monday, which meant that it was about 110 degrees in our un-air-conditioned house. Not ... Read more

Sometimes you just need a simple, white linen blouse. It's been drizzly and bordering on frigid ever since we got back to Seattle, and I welcomed the idea of sewing a long-sleeve top. I've been saving a breathtakingly beautiful and expensive white linen for years, but I couldn't cut into it for this project. I knew I wanted white, and it most definitely had to be linen, but I was afraid I might make an irreparable mistake and I wasn't sure if I could handle that in my current frazzled ... Read more

Hey, it's my turn for the Make It Perfect tour! Toni designs comfortable and good-lookin' styles, and I was so excited to try out her patterns. She sent me the paper version of the Coastal Breeze dress, and oh, I love not having to piece together PDF sheets. I seem to always screw up when aligning PDF patterns and various sheets wind up completely off-kilter. Does that ever happen to you? Anyway, I'm a fan of Toni and Make It Perfect! This dress is fantastic. Really, I'm already planning ... Read more

Ikat. Something happens to me when the temperature rises, and I long to wear ikat. That's a pretty nifty back, right? Can I just tell you that I continuously bias bound the entire top portion all the way around the neckline and the cross over straps and arm holes, and I believe that bias tape was at least 6 feet long?  It was taller than me, at any rate (I'm 5'4"). From the front, it looks like a plain ole tank, made in a lovely chevron-patterned ikat that I got from here ages ago: I'm ... Read more