I am on an asian kick right now. I had planned to add an asian element to my designs for the fashion show, after seeeing Project Runway and the Japanese block print exhibit at the Blanton, I am READY.

Who wouldn’t find inspiration in this stuff?

I want Kimonos.  Specifically the sleeves.  The bigger, the better.   Besides, the sleeves are pretty simple.  Most are attached to the front and back pieces of the top.  Very few are the standard “set-in” style of sleeve.

I made myself a shirt today.  Simplicity 4020 view D. I cut the sleeves in between the short and long length.  My second attempt at this pattern will be a black knit mini dress with super long sleeves and maybe some fancy trim.

So I am working on a jacket for Megan. She needed office wear. Normally I am opposed to making jackets but I did it anyways. What don’t I like? SLEEVES. I used to cheat and leave the side seams open while I set in the sleeves but today I decided to do it the right way, closed side seam on jacket and closed sleeve seam.

Things that make setting in sleeves easier.

1. Mark the pattern pieces. Those little dots are there for a reason.
2. The basting stitches should be at 5/8 and 1/4 inches. This will make the gathering part easier.
3. Use a dress form.
4. Pin the sleeve at the shoulder seam and the armpit. Pin at the notches. Then gather to match the dots.
5. I used a billion pins this time.
6. I hand basted in the sleeves to avoid having to yank out pins as I go (I am also a little more cautious because I frequently run out of bobbin thread while putting in sleeves and I discover it after all the pins are taken out.

Hopefully your sleeve setting goes smoothly. This is the jacket I am making… Simplicity 4238 View C. I am working with a plaid and thought that this pattern worked better.

It will go with Simplicity 3874 view A. I am making the dress out of a chocolate brown jersey. I ditched the zipper in the back and it will be pull on. The one difficulty in how I cut the dress is that I negated the center back seam in the top part which made it difficult to sew the lining to the exterior.

I was reading Austinist when I saw this pop up in the sidebar.Excuse me? As much as I didn’t want to look I had to it was like a TRAIN WRECK.

I was forced to interrupt an email conversation in the latest trends in jeans (boyfriend’s back) to talk about this thing.

Claire thinks that, “some clever hipster stumbled across an unopened, booklet that included, “miracle dress you can wear 150 different ways” from 1979 and thought ‘why not bring it back’.”

The dress is flawed. AA is selling you a 2 panel dress with a giant drawstring claiming you will have endless options. Endless if you have a bra and Spanx on. Seriously. This is t-shirt knit. You can’t hide a thing.

If AA were smart and wanted to target a wider (no pun intended) audience, they would bring back this hit from the 70s. The infinity dress. The dress has ONE seam in it.  Easy to manufacture in their little american sweatshop. Think about it…