FO: Fancy Ball Dress

"Fancy Ball Dress"

(aka Vogue 1192)

 

Just the Facts:
Fabric: 2 yards each dupioni silk from Measure $50 and bemberg rayon from JoAnn's $10

Notions: Thread, zipper $3

Pattern: Vogue 1192
Year: 2010
Time to Complete:  about 2 years (seriously, lol. see here and here)

First Worn:  September 27, 2014
Wear Again:  yes, hopefully I'll have the opportunity soon!
Total Cost: $67.00

It's been a while since I had a finished thing to post.  I've had a lot of changes going on in my life.  The biggest one is that I just started a new job less than 2 weeks ago.  Doing interview prep and such took a lot of energy out of me and then having to work out my notice at my old job of over 7 years was draining as well.  I know I made the right decision, but I was constantly feeling Done.  Now that that's over, more time for sewing! (hopefully)

 

I had my 10-year high school reunion Saturday night.  I wasn't sure I wanted to go to it.  I mean, who actually goes to their 10-year reunion anyway?  I decided to go to the reunion and use it as motivation to finish up this gorgeous dress that's been hanging there taunting me for nearly 2 years.

  

All these night time pictures are terrible, though the fabric color is surprisingly accurate.  A touch less shiny and more green perhaps.  I left off with this dress very annoyed with the left front bodice piece.  The bust dart was in the way wrong place and I COULD NOT figure out how to fix it.  I guess a couple more years of sewing experience under my scissors helped a lot.  I looked at the pattern piece and knew exactly what I needed to do to fix my issue.  I marked my bust apex on the pattern piece. closed the dart on the tracing, and retraced the pattern piece to start fresh.  From there, I slashed the bust dart open and spread my pattern piece out, creating a much smaller and shorter dart.  The new pattern piece is almost perfect!

 

I could have done a better job with the hem.  It's a bit lower in the front than the back.   I lost a fair amount of fabric to unraveling over the years.  YEARS.  This dress was taunting me in the corner, you have no idea.

 

Glamor shot!

 

I was trying to show off the pleats and failing horribly.  Are they tucks or pleats?  I can never keep them straight.  According to this pop quiz, people have been getting them confused for a long time.  I like this description from that same link: "A tuck is secured it’s entire length, as in a pin-tuck. A tuck is fixed.  A pleat is only secured at one end (unless it is smocked) it is loose, it can fold and unfold. A pleat is malleable."  I'm thinking my shaping detail is a pleat because they lines aren't sewn for the entire length--only 2-3" per line.

 

 I started with the size 8 and made quite a few changes to this dress to get it to fit me properly.

    --shortened the dress front and back by 3"

    --took 1.5" off the shoulder seam at the neck tapering to match the pattern at the armhole

    --redrew the v-neck seam line, taking off anywhere from 3/4" to 1/4" 

    --moved the bust dart on the left front and made it 2.5" instead of 4.5"

    --hand-stitched a 3/4" hem instead of 2" hem (shouldn't have shortened so much!  I didn't make the shoulder seam adjustment on my muslin and that's where I lost a lot of the length.)

 

More about the reunion:  I was SHOCKED! by who married who, how much weight people gained (or lost), the jobs people held, and how many people I didn't recognize at all.  One guy in my class is a construction foreman-type who works for the State of Florida.  His dad is the local judge and everyone thought Andrew was going to be a lawyer for sure.  The party was held at the town country club (I went to school in a very small town).  There was some food, a cash bar, and a very bad DJ.  We opened the time capsule.  Someone put tarter sauce in it!  It was brown and gross after 10 years.  There were a lot of pictures in the time capsule too.  Someone put one in from the first day of senior year.  I don't even remember taking the photo that day.  My life has changed so many ways since graduating from high school, yet it feels like I haven't changed at all.

I didn't get any pictures at the event, so I had to get up on Sunday and take some semi-decent daytime ones.  This is bedhead and leftover mascara.  Wooo.  I'm also hiding my glasses behind my back.  Lazy Sunday FTW.

 

I had a really hard time with this back vent.  I was stumped for several days.  The lining pattern pieces are an inch or two narrower than the fashion fabric and the lining didn't seem to match up with the fashion fabric on the inside.  The left side looks like it's pulling.  That's actually the extension side and the directions had me tack that down, which only led to the dress riding up like crazy.  I opted to leave the extension open and iron a sharp crease instead.  It's marginally better, trust me.

 

Bonus butt shot!

 

I said it before--this dress is the result of a perfect pairing of fabric and pattern.  The pleats/tucks look perfect and the darts are sharp.  This dress is classically beautiful.  I think even the color is great.  I believe the details would be lost in a darker color.

 

There is one major stress point on this dress and that is where the right and left fronts meet just above the rightmost tuck.  The pattern instructions have you perform a certain form of sorcery to get these pieces joined.  You should probably backstitch this section more than you think you need to.

 

I did a lot of hand stitching on this dress.  The armscyes and necklines were understitched by hand.

 

As were the hems and tacking the lining to the shell.

 

Have a glimpse at this weird vent.

 

And a glimpse of the gorgeous slubbing on this fabric!

Did you go to any of your high school reunions?  What surprised you the most about the people you graduated with 10 (or 20 or 30) years later?

I love silk! (Update on Souvenier Dress)

Picture this, but with silk (for those not in the know, the above picture is Goldmember from the third Austin Powers movie).  Making my souvenier dress is going better than I could have imagined.  I was so worried something would go horribly wrong, but (fingers crossed while knocking on wood) nothing has.  Believe me, I've had a couple hiccups along the way.  Bemberg rayon is my lining of choice.  It is also the biggest PITA to work with.  It wrinkles like nobody's business.  It spots if water gets too close.  Pins leave holes.  Stupid bemberg rayon.  Oh, hiccups, yes.  I might have cut one of the pattern pieces out wrong for the lining.  I'm not sure.  I sewed the dart on and went to pin the pieces together at the shoulder seams and that side was just all wrong.  I threw the piece in the scrap bag and went off to finish what I could before cutting out another lining piece.  Duh!  It's just a lining.  I picked the seams out of the dart, flipped it over, resewed the dart, and called myself a genius.  I rock! 

This should be finished this weekend.  My friend I was supposed to meet up with for Thanksgiving moved away this week and told me his family was going to the mountain house for Thanksgiving.  He & I aren't going to meet up now.  :(  Anyway, here are some progress pictures (I was a mess last night and I was trying not to get stabbed with the tiny silk pins):

It looks a little big right now because the lining isn't sewn in--that will take up a standard 5/8" seam allowance per side--and I only pinned the side seams about 1/4" in or so. 

See the waterspot on my lining?  Grrr.  Stupid iron.  I zig-zag my edges because I don't have a serger.  I want one so bad, but I have bigger financial priorities and life goals, you know?

I'm showing off the pleats here.  This color is so hard to photograph and I'm not the professional photoshop editor-type.  The actual color is somewhere between this color and the color in the pictures above.

I can't wait to show off the finished dress!  I just have to sew the side seams, hem the dresses, attach the lining to the zipper, and hand sew the bottom two inches of the zipper down.  Yay!

Souvenier Dress!

I am going to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with my friend and his family this year.  This is the perfect opportunity and reason to kick my butt in gear and start sewing up a new dress.  I bought the most gorgeous turquoise dupioni silk while I was on vacation in Savannah, GA in June.  I got it from a little shop called Measure.  I had so much fun browsing in that store.  She carries a wide variety of fabric including leather hydes, silk, linen, and rayon, and she even has Liberty of London prints.

Isn't it beautiful?  I'm in love with it.

I stumbled upon this Vogue pattern number 1192 and instantly decided it was absolutely perfect for this fabric and for me.  Vogue makes the worst fabric choices.  This dress has amazing detailing and it is lost in the cover photo.  You really have to look beyond the sample when you are selecting patterns to get a better idea of the pattern's potential. 

For only five pattern pieces, it sure is work.  I trace all my patterns out onto freezer paper to preserve the pattern's integrity and to allow myself more room for making the modifications I need to.  Since I will likely have to make several adjustments to get this pattern to fit my 4'11" body, I started a muslin in some cheap polyester dupioni I picked up at JoAnn's for about $5.  I'm not exactly sure how to make the mods I'll need with this pattern, but I will figure it out.  I think the waistline is going to have to come up an inch.  Well, wish me luck!  I have about 18 days to finish this up.  I can't wait to wear my souvenier. :) 

Do you sew?  What do you like to sew? I mostly just sew dresses because I live in Florida and I know the basic mods I need to do to get the right fit.  Pants are a little out of my comfort zone for the moment.  Leave me a comment or email me at ellelittleblog@gmail.com

(If you need a little enabling to blow the dust off your sewing machine, JoAnn's has McCall's patterns on sale for $1.29 through tomorrow and Simplicity patterns at 5 for $5 November 8-12.)