This is my new favorite dress:
I've had a goal for over a year now to improve my church wardrobe and I am slowly making progress. When I hung this dress in the closet I was pleased to see that it hung next to three or four other dresses I've made in the last year or two, all of which fit me properly and each of which is an improvement upon the last as far as sewing/construction/proper finishing goes. Physical evidence of progress is great! Anyway, back to this dress...
This is a knit from Girl Charlee. When I arrived I was not sure I loved it. A little too 'royal blue' rather than 'navy blue' and the white dots were bigger than I'd hoped. Ah, the perils of buying fabric online. I decided to plow ahead, though, and just make the dress. I often end up with projects that are more 'blah' than I had hoped (see this dress for evidence) so I bit the bullet and made the dress even though I thought it might be a bit too flashy. I'm so thankful I did because I LOVE the finished dress. I think its cute - a happy place in between flashy and blah. Just plain cute. AND its knit so its crazy comfortable to wear. AND I planned ahead and drafted a cute collar for it and had a white belt ready to go so that its a complete look rather than a dress-that-needs-a-little-something.
This was drafted and sewn from my personal pattern.
I've already put in the hours on previous dresses tweaking fit and adjusting ease so this was a quick sew. It feels great to reap the benefits of all that previous hard work!
Yep, this is me from the side. Skinny as a rail and no bust to speak of.
My boss at the costume shop says if I stick out my tongue I'd be a zipper. :)
I did have to draft the collar specifically for this dress but thats a simple thing for me now and it turned out well. The collar is white knit interfaced with a tricot fusible on one layer. It came together easily and lays nicely so I'm happy with it.
The back has a little cutout at the top neck for ease in getting it over my head, and then closes with a button and elastic loop. There is a tad bit of pooling/extra fabric at my back waist, but not enough to make me rip it out and redo it. :)
Here's a shot of the inside - its fully lined in a white slinky knit I got on sale. I think its supposed to be swimsuit lining, but whatever it is, it's cool and smooth on the skin and perfect for a dress lining. (The lining is cut less-full than the skirt so I can't spread the skirt out properly.) I made the dress using both my sewing machine and serger.
I've worn it a few times now and I love it, love it, love it.
Next up in the church wardrobe department will be some properly fitting skirts but I'm not sure when I'll get to those. Its finally decided to be spring here so we've been mostly outside - I haven't been in the sewing room in over a week and haven't worked a stitch on my crochet cardigan. I think the next project will be zip wallets on lanyards for summer trips to the library and ice cream shop!
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