Work In Progress: Gray Ruffle Dress

So this is what I worked on this weekend. I'm not *thrilled* with it, and so I figured I'd put it up for your comments.

What's wrong:

-- the skirt was originally about 3" longer, which was WAY TOO LONG, Texas-compound long, but I'd already sewn on the ruffle, which meant I had to take it up from the waist. Which meant resewing the seams on either side of the center front and back piece (had already put in the pockets, too, so I didn't want to resew those seams).

-- I wanted to match the darts with the center front seams so I had to ease the front into the skirt and so it wrinkled. I think if I stay it with some twill tape it will stay stretched, but I haven't done that yet.

-- I thought I was ready for an elegant gray dress, monochrome and understated and all that, but now that I have one I think it needs some color. Where? I could sew middy braid around the neck and hem ... or, you know, I could just wear a yellow cardigan over it (which is what I'll probably end up doing anyway).

The weirdness on the right-hand side of the picture (left-hand side of the dress) is from pinning it -- I haven't put in the zipper yet. Nor have I sewn down the sleeve self-facings.

This dress came about because I (shock, horror!) managed to LOSE the pieces for this pattern:



I don't know where they went; all I know is that I can't find them. Arrgh.

So I took a six-gore skirt from a pattern I had NOT lost the pieces from (McCalls 3036, which I don't have a link to right now), did some rudimentary math and some pattern-piece surgery, and put together the skirt. Then I just slapped on the bodice from McCalls 8858 again.

Here's a few more pics:





Anyway, am I not thrilled about this dress because it's inherently not a thriller, or am I not thrilled about this dress because I had to do too much fussing with it? (Actually, the more I look at it the more fun I think it will be to wear, if I try not to overthink it too much. And if I finally wear a solid-colored dress, perhaps I could finally wear some of the colorful jewelry I've collected ...)

Thoughts?

Once more, from the top

One of the side effects of learning Summerset's invisible-zipper-and-side-seam-pocket trick is that it's making me re-evaluate a lot of my all-time favorite patterns for pocketosity. Like this one, for instance:




Before I knew the trick, this poor dress was limited to just ONE side-seam pocket -- obviously an injustice. But now that I can have bilateral pocket symmetry, it was obviously time to make it again:



Oops, looks like I got it a little twisted on the dress form, there. I swear it actually hangs straight. Here's the new, improved, invisible side zip, with pocket:



Notice that I didn't match up the waist seam exactly on either side of the zipper. I must also disclose that, while I was wearing the dress, nobody mentioned this. (Very kind of them.)

Here's the OTHER pocket, the "normal" one:



I didn't have QUITE enough fabric to cut this dress out according to the layout -- in fact, I had to piece the back bodice, which is supposed to be cut on the fold:



I also cut the skirt sections on the fold, instead of giving them a center seam. This adds 1.25" to each skirt piece, which, miraculously, is just the amount I need to enlarge the waist by so that it fits comfortably. (Don't forget to add 5/8" to the bodice sides, too, if you want this to work!)

This is almost certainly going to be made again, and soon. I'm happy with how it turned out, but next time I'm going to make one change -- I'm going to make the neckline facing in a lighter fabric -- the facing in the fashion fabric, especially here (this is a fairly heavy cotton sateen) is just too bulky, see the little lumpiness on the left shoulder back:



Even with all the fussing about, cutting some things on the fold and not others, adding pockets (the pattern doesn't include pocket pieces), putting in an invisible zip, etc. etc., this is a remarkably fast pattern to make -- even with hemming it by hand (and that's a LOT of skirt), it was still under four hours, total.

(And possibly I'll even iron the next version before I take the pictures.)

A Repeat Performance

I broke down and bought this pattern again. I know it seems profligate to buy another copy of a pattern that I already own, but I only have this pattern in a larger bust size (bought it when I was still nursing and thought I would be living in the land of the ample-chested forever) and, honestly, it's easier for me to spend $8 on eBay than two hours redrafting. Welcome to my first-world life, the next tour begins in twelve minutes.

I have to say that this is one of my favorite necklines in the history of the dress (and/or the neck). It's just the right combo of sweet and elegant, and it is really fun both to make and to wear.

A few years back, just before I started blogging, I made this bodice about eight different times. There was an Eiffel tower print, and a black-and-white print, and a blue kind of atomic/lava-lamp blob print, and a few others I'm sure I'm not remembering. They all got worn into shreds, and rightly so.

It's also freakishly quick to make (unlike a lot of those "sew it today, wear it tonight!" patterns I see). There are a few darts, a few seams, a side zipper, and a hem, and boom, you're done and walking out the door in it (and, if you're me, trailing many, many tiny pieces of thread, but that's not the PATTERN'S fault).

So: if I had a Dress A Day stamp of approval, or ribbon, or underwriting laboratory, this pattern would be stamped, be-ribboned, and certified for all on- and off-label uses.

And maybe this time I'll even make the little jacket!