The battle between light and dark…

I am about to embark on a project for a friend which has me making a 1970s double breasted blazer a la Don Cherry.  The colour palette requested is based on the Cleveland Browns uniforms – orange and brown.  Yup.  Let that sink in for a second…

SOOOO…I decided I wanted to make something for myself before I threw myself into the Don Cherry project.

I picked up this pattern (Simplicity 8125) on eBay about three months ago and was having a bit of a difficult time finding fabric.  I don’t know about you, but sometimes you just need to find the RIGHT fabric for a project.  This one needed two fabrics!  It was a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be, but I digress.

According to the envelope this Simplicity pattern is from 1969.  It is for a mod style REVERSIBLE! dress.  How cute is that?  Two dresses for the price of one!

Simplicity 8125

It took me a couple of months and a trip across the border to find two fabrics I liked.  Confession here – it is a rare day that I don’t wear black – so I KNEW one side was going to have a black background.  I was stumped on the second side.  Most people would say – why not white and magenta?  Good question.  I have what people politely call alabaster skin tone.  It is pale to the extreme and blue undertones which means I cannot wear white without looking like I’m dead.  True story.

Here is what I was finally able to find:

On the left: Black and magenta dotted cotton batik. On the right: Light magenta with dark magenta squiggles.

Not too shabby right?

This dress was a breeze to sew up.  The only alteration I had to make was to shorten the dress about 3 inches.  The joys of being so short.  It took me less time to sew up this dress then it did to cut it out.

Here are the results:

The light side.

The dark side.

This dress is much cuter on a real person – my Judy doesn’t do it justice, but it’s been raining most of the weekend and I couldn’t bring myself to fake a cheery shoot!  Maybe when the weather gets better I’ll post another picture.  Fingers crossed that summer comes to Vancouver, BC!

-girliefrank-

This post was written by...

girliefrank – who has written 10 posts on WeSewRetro.com.

I live in beautiful Vancouver, BC (Canada) and have been sewing for almost 30 years (eek!) My grandmother put my first "real" sewing project in my hands when I was about 8 years old - a counted cross stitch - to ensure my hand sewing was up to par before I was allowed to use a machine. I have recently "retired" and while learning to be a haus frau for my almost vegan hubby and my four-legged Parson Terrier son, I have had a chance to get back to sewing! I hope to be able to share some of my work with you on a fairly regular basis!

girliefrank's posts / girliefrank's website