Friday, August 7, 2015

Cherry Bomb dress

I've been making so many things for my daughter this year...I decided it was high time for some selfish sewing! 

I've had this gorgeous cherry print sateen in my stash for so long...probably over four years. I wanted to save it for a time when I had the confidence to make something really nice with it. I thought about making my favourite pattern, the Simplicity Lisette Round Trip dress, but I thought the print would really lend itself to more of a wiggle dress shape. However, one-piece dresses are a beast to fit on my figure, so I decided to mash the Lisette bodice with the skirt from this groovy retro Butterick pattern. 



I cut the bodice on the second smallest size, tapering up a size at the waist, and cut the skirt on the second smallest size. The skirt has these incredibly complicated pleats at the waist, but they look nothing special from the outside! I ended up taking a mammoth 6 inches off the skirt length...seriously, a few inches below the knee is such an unflattering length (on me, anyway). My only other adjustment was to take a whole one inch seam on the centre back.




I did make one boo-boo, as is my way...I sewed my invisible zipper onto the wrong side (well, I sewed it to the right side of the fabric, which is the wrong side...) but I'm not too fussed about that as it's pretty neat. 



I didn't have any matching buttons (it only needs one, at the top of the keyhole opening at the neck) so I made a matching fabric covered button. Unfortunately, it fell apart today so I'll have to attempt to make another one or go and buy one black shank button.



I made my students take these photos today. They took about a thousand of them.



Anyway, I adore this dress, and think it's my new favourite. I'm going to make a few more of this bodice and skirt combo, and use up some more sateen from my stash.

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