Me-Made-May '12: Week One

Hello friends! This is going to be a short and sweet post (mostly). To recap, my Me-Made-May '12 Pledge is as follows:

I, Tina of Down the Retro Rabbit Hole, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '12. I endeavour to wear an article of me-made clothing at least three times a week  for the duration of May 2012.

And I did! Check ME out:

May 1, 2012: I wore my new PJs all day. Yeah, I roll like that.

May 4, 2012: Simplicity 2215 skirt worn to the Van Gogh exhibit at the PMA. Fittingly, as this skirt is made out of a cotton I purchased while living in India, Mr. Retro took my picture in the Asian Art Gallery in front of a sculpture of the Indian God Brahma. 

The last item I wore this week is a modified Colette Sorbetto. If you remember, friends, the Sorbetto was the first item I made and debuted on this blog and it was AWFUL. If you really want to see it in all of it's Frankenstein glory, go here. This Sorbetto, however, I rather like. And I damn well better as it took me... wait for it... THREE DAYS to get to fit right! I lengthened it by two inches, made the scoop in the front more scoop-y, and cut a "V" into the back. I attempted to scoop out the armholes a bit more, but it didn't really work for some reason. All of that I managed to do in one day. The next two days were spent fiddling with the gathers at the bust and the side seams. I ended up taking out about 1 1/2 inches on the sides to get it to curve in and not look like a tent on me. I wish I could say I made the bias tape, but I didn't by the time I got to that point I just wanted to be done so I bought some tape! I used this tutorial from A Few Threads Loose to bind the inverted "V" at the back. It worked rather well!

Front... you can't really see the gathers. 

Back... I kinda love the "V"! 

 The fabric is some toile I had laying about since... oh, forever. You can kinda see in this picture that I cut two back pieces (I added 5/8 inches for a seam) and sewed them together. This has more to do with the lack of fabric real estate than it does pattern modification. I feel that this garment will probably find itself in heavy rotation as Philly grows increasingly hot as balls warm.