A Little Alabama

When BSF and I visited the Alabama Chanin store in Florence AL, I decided I wanted to make a simple knit dress.

Maybe I was inspired by the adorable young woman who waited on us. She wore a high-low hemmed black knit dress and a black shrug. And she described how she had just started on her wedding gown, designed in total AC style. Oh my.

Or maybe I was a little inspired by the local college girl, modeling AC dresses for an upcoming fashion show.

Maybe I was inspired by the store, classroom and workroom (no pictures allowed in there).

The AC store front is not too inspiring, is it?

But mostly I was inspired by pure Alabama Chanin knits, chocked full of hand-sewing, mesmerizing and seductive. They have a newer line that is machine made but, of course, the hand-sewn pieces are the main event, IMO. Garments sell for lots of $$$, as they should. Many hours and lovely materials go into their construction

I purchased 2 yards of dark navy blue. It's so dark that black thread is the best match in my stash of threads. Yikes it was expensive - $26 per yard, maybe? I've blocked it. It is organically grown a stone's throw from my birthplace, processed into knit yardage and dyed, all here in the USA. So it's expensive. This makes sense.

The pattern is the Swing Tee extended into a dress, as described in a tutorial from the Sewing Workshop. I followed the tutorial fairly closely on my first version of this, including the interesting pockets invisible in this print.

I was short on fabric for the 2nd one, so no pockets at all.

And on this 3rd one, I decided on patch pockets.

I added some AC touches to it though it's not full-on AC style. The leaves are hand-drawn using a white gel pen. Then I placed patches of off-white AC knit behind the drawn leaves in order to stitch and cut out the reverse appliques.

I also added some sashiko outlines to the neckline and sleeve edges.

The process is fun but a little hard on my thumb, for some reason. It's a little harder to push the needle through two layers of this cotton knit than I expected.

By AC standards, this is plain. I think it'll work for me just fine. I've worn the other two quite a lot. Yep, this must be the summer of dresses for me.

There has been a bit of other sewing going on. I made a ga-zillion (made=serged) napkins for Pentecost Sunday at my church.

And then there were left-overs just begging to become a rope bowl. Creating these makes me unreasonably happy.

Makers gotta make. Sewers gotta sew. Right?