Cambie-zilla

Cambie dress done in the little colorful bird fabric.  I must say even I like this one and will hopefully wear it to death.  So I do what I usually do after finishing a project.  Take camera outside and snap a few pics for the blog.  I’m sure the neighbors wonder wtf but are too polite to say anything.  So here I am, posing in my lovely dress all barefoot and fancy free.

What do I see out of the corner of my eye?  A lizard-like creature WATCHING me take pics.  I HATE reptiles.  Hate hate hate.  My understanding with them is that they leave me alone and I leave them alone.   We pretend the other doesn’t exist.  Yet this interloper didn’t get the memo!  I was torn, I needed a few more pics to make sure I got one that doesn’t suck too much, but I am being watched by said reptile.  Hence the rest of the pictures look like this:Yes, the only thing I can look at is that damned lizard and clearly I’m the only one who looks worried.  Eventually I was totally pissed at the lizard and shooed it back into the bushes but the bubble had burst.  I was no longer in the happy pic taking mood.  So if you don’t like these pictures, blame the lizard.

Other than lizard-zilla, Cambie is a great pattern.  I used a very nice cotton from Stonemountain in Berkeley (50% off too!).  I used an 8 at the bust and 10 everywhere else.  The only pattern “alteration” I did was to draw a new cutting line from 8 bust to 10 waist on the the bodice pieces, which took about 45 seconds.  For the rest I just followed the pattern.  It’s a well drafted pattern so it’s a good make for a newish sewist.

I lined the dress with some yellow poly charmeuse from the stash.  That poly feels great against the skin so that was lucky break.  I chose to topstitch around the front bodice and straps to keep the poly lining from popping out and that took a bit of ingenuity with the construction of the garment but it was well worth the effort to figure it out.  I cut the waistbands initially the wrong direction for the pattern of my fabric so I used one of the wrong waistbands on the lining.  I just thought it was cute to have little pop of the fabric in the sea of yellow.

Other than a few minor changes I made the pattern up as written and am totally happy with the result.  I love the pockets (the dress lays perfectly when I don’t shove my mitts into the pocket so IGNORE the lines in the skirt please) and would like to make another one with a straight neckline since I’m really not that much of a sweetheart girl.  {Shut up. I can hear you.}