Electric Pink Tunic

Oh my gosh, do you know that Valentine's Day is only 2 weeks away?  Weather aside, this is one of my favorite times of year.   My birthday and Lincoln's birthday are only a day apart, and Lincoln is a huge deal in Illinois, where I live.  Our state slogan, after all, is "the Land of Lincoln".   Then, right after "our" birthdays, it's Valentine's day.

Chocolate, flowers, birthday cake, Lincoln, amethyst, Aquarians....it's all so good.

So, it follows that during this time of year, I am all about hearts and anything pink or red.   Last week, my 4-H sewing club made these adorable heart pot holders from aspoonfulofsugardesigns.com

And the meeting before that we made these sweet heart hand warmers, filled with rice, and scented with peppermint oil, courtesy of patchworkposse.com:

Making these was a blast.  FYI- one drop of peppermint oil goes a long, long way!  I felt like I was working in a candy cane factory that day.

So, I had to also make something pink for me!  Wait, go grab your sunglasses before you scroll any further.  You are going to need them.

I wanted to make another one of Pamela's Patterns, and this time I made #115, the Softly Pleated Dress.  Last week, I blogged about the Pretty Peplum Top, also from Pamela's Patterns, to give you more information about Pamela and her pattern line. 

This pattern is for is a knit dress  that can also be made as a tunic length. I used a bright pink double knit from FabricMart.com and at first made it in the dress length.

Wow! Talk about pink  It seems that people either love pink or hate pink.  I think it has to do with the association with pre-teen girls, Barbie, and generally being frilly.  If you can take those associations away from it though, and just view it as a color, it's very versatile.  Just look at nature- she throws pink around everywhere in the flower world!  I really love it when guys wear pink.  I think a man in a pink shirt is super sexy.  It says "I'm confident enough in my masculinity, that I don't care what anybody says; I'm going to wear pink".

All that said, this particular pink in this particular dress was too much pink for me.  So, I had to shorten it to a tunic length.

The pattern has a square neckline binding, which was the first time I'd tried that with a knit.  Here is a peek at the inside, where you can see, you just form tiny darts at the corners.  My fabric's a little thick, but if your fabric was thinner, you could press them flat.

I just had to have some pockets in this one, so I grabbed a pocket pattern from another pattern and cut it out of some closely colored silk twill.  I placed the top of the pocket 3" down from the waistline edge in the side seam, and it was perfect.  So happy to have a place to carry my phone!

This is a style that covers up any fluff in the middle.   Love not having to suck in my stomach when I'm wearing this!  The pattern has two fronts- one with a dart for fuller busts, and one without.  I made the darted front and it fits perfectly with no changes.

The scarf in the pictures was a gift from a Chinese family whose daughter was studying English with my daughter.  I never met them, but she told them that I liked fashion, and they said that they must give me a silk scarf.  Other cultures are so generous.   It couldn't be more perfect with this top and I will remember what a kind gesture that was whenever I wear it.  Hopefully it will remind me to "Pay it Forward" more often. 

We took these photos in a hotel lobby and found this sign that perfectly matched the top. I need this sign for the sewing club at school.  I'd love to just have it blink on and off when the kids get to be off task.

How about you?  Are you sewing anything fun for February?  How do you feel about the color pink?

Happy Sewing!

Ann