Neon Florals

I found this vintage pattern at a pattern swap a few years ago and in the same period of time I also found some fabric yardage at an estate sale.  I immediately had an idea to pair one of those fabrics with the pattern.  Unfortunately, the fabric was definitely a polyester blend, and somewhere in the middle of working through the dress, I became disillusioned with the polyester and ditched the project entirely.

When I came across this bright cotton at the JoAnn Fabrics closing sale, I remembered the pattern and thought it would be a nice option for the dress design.

Unfortunately, I didn't have quite enough yardage.  But I wasn't going to let that stop me.

Instead of cutting out the midi-length skirt as I initially had hoped, I figured that I could make the shorter version.  I was still going to be slightly short on yardage, and since the skirt pieces are drafted quite generously, I was able to cut them out even shorter than the short length cut line and still have a knee-length dress.  Hooray!

There may not have been any black solid cotton in my stash, but I did find a deep green that matched nicely to one of the green tones in the print.

And I do like using fabric scraps that I already have on hand!

I love a basque waist bodice, and wish more contemporary patterns would pick up on the trend.

It's a classic and very flattering line and I am pleased to see some ready to wear brands are bringing it back.  Perhaps it will crop up in one or two patterns in the next year.  But if you are looking for existing options, do a search for 1980s vintage patterns and quite a few will come up.

For the zipper, I went with my standard hand application after basting it into place.

It is so satisfying to cover up all of those raw edges with a crisp lining!

The skirt is cut very full, and for whatever reason, this quilting cotton dropped on the bias quite a bit.  This is totally fixable, but not my favorite thing to do since it involves sitting on the ground with a ruler and a bunch of pins.

And so that I could save as much of the skirt length as possible, I used my remaining scraps to cut out a bias binding for the hemline edge.

This technique works great with a curved edge, so that was an added bonus.

I also understitched the bias facing, although it probably wasn't completely necessary since I was working with self-fabric.

The hem was hand-stitched into place.

(With a bit of help from a snoozing Archie.)

While the pattern is fairly basic, the added interest from the basque waist and the raglan sleeves added enough detail to keep my interest.

And the print was just begging to be part of a 1980s silhouette.

So although it took a while to get here (and I should have known that a polyester fabric was not something I should be wasting time with) I am very excited to wear my new dress.

Strawberry Blossom

While this project was a long time coming (I've been wanting to make this dress for about 20 years now) I am so happy that I finally found the right fabric and the time to get started.

While the construction of the bodice front did give me a bit of grief, I am happy to report that the changes that I made were successful, and the extra work was definitely worth any added aggravation.

But the most obvious part of the dress is the print!  I actually found this yardage on Poshmark a couple of years ago for a great deal.  I've already made a skirt and top with the combination of the larger and smaller sized print, and I will have enough left over to make another item when the right design comes along.

There is just something about a novelty print with the added whimsey of using fruit as the main design element.

Dolce & Gabbana are probably the best at creating amazing fruit and vegetable themed fabric prints, but the companies creating motifs for quilting cotton are also doing a great job.

This particular print is older, I believe.  If i had to guess, I would say it's from the late 1980s or early 1990s.

And it gave me a chance to pull out my strawberry earrings.

Perhaps best of all, the added fullness created by the skirt godets is really fun to wear and walk in.

I am thinking that the pattern pieces would also make a great skirt.

Then again, all of that top-stitching was a lot of work . . . but it just might be worth it!

Dress:  Made by me, Vogue 2785
Earrings:  Etsy
Shoes:  Kate Spade

Strawberries & Cream

I have had Vogue 2785 in my pattern stash for YEARS.  The copyright is 2004, and I would guess that I purchased it in 2004 or 2005, so it's been neglected for about 20 years.

Now, back when I initially got my hands on it, I was slightly intimidated by the pattern.  The pattern envelope rates the design "Average" as far as difficulty goes, but all of those seamlines and top-stitching had me thinking that it was out of my league.

Now that I've worked through the entire pattern, I would agree with the Average rating.  That being said, if you choose to work with a satin or a slippy fabric, some of those godet pieces might get aggravating since the edges are essentially cut on the bias.

Which brings me to the massive amount of top-stitching that is included on this dress.  I generally avoid top-stitching like the plague, but in the last couple of years I have been attempting to get over my phobia with visible machine stitches, and I think that this project proves that I am making some progress!  Almost every seamline is top-stitched twice, and there are a lot of panels in that skirt.

I did fall back on a bit of hand stitching, though.  Most of the bodice edges are finished with bias binding and then top-stitched.  Instead of relying on pins to keep those bias pieces in place as they were wrapped around the edges, I folded the bias piece in half and then hand stitched it from the inside edge before top-stitching according to the instructions. 

My main issue with the drafting of this project came from the bodice pieces.  I knew that I wanted to increase the size of the bust slightly, and I did that with the slash and spread method.  My modification may have aggravated the issue slightly, but that upper edge of the bodice was not laying flat and was standing away from the dress form/my body.  And with a design such as this, that's just not a good look.  I ended up re-cutting the bodice pieces and pulling that upper edge in with the help of a length of seam binding and a line of gathering stitches.

That made  world of difference.  And while I am loath to re-do a part of a sewing project that I have already completed, I am so glad that I took the extra time to fix the issue.

Having now finished the dress, I do think that there is something lacking in the pattern draft itself.  Those bodice pieces just don't lay quite right, especially at the upper and lower edges without some extra help.

And since there is really no way to tell how the fit is going to turn out until the entire thing is constructed (along with a whole lot of top-stitching), that can be really frustrating.

While I was working on that portion of the dress, I decided that adding bust pads would be a good idea, since that wide neckline would make finding a suitable bra a bit of a challenge.  I didn't manage to get a still photo, but I talk about the process of adding some bust support to the dress over on Instagram.

And after that was complete, there was more top-stitching.

This project took a bit of time to complete, and when I was tired of all that top-stitching and setting in skirt godets, I worked on the skirt facing pieces.  The instructions suggest adding interfacing to the dress itself, and then stitching the facing in place.  I modified the process so that the facing pieces were interfaced instead of the dress.

And when it came to the zipper, I once again deviated from the instructions.  I was not about to trust an invisible zipper to this design, especially since there are so many top-stitched seams.  Why not add center back to the list of top-stitched bits with a regular zipper?  

Did I mention there was a lot of top-stitching on this dress?  Each time I thought I was done with it, I found another seamline needing another two lines of visible top-stitching.

There also seems to be an issue with the drafting of the skirt facing pieces.  

There was about 12" extra length on the facing.  It was an easy fix to create one more seamline and discard the extra length, but I have no idea why it was so far off.

I hand basted the facing into place before, you guessed it, adding a few more lines of top-stitching.

I even found a use for a quilting guide since the facing is a bit wider than any of the marked measurements on my machine's needle plate.

At this point, it was looking pretty cute, a lot of which had to do with the strawberry printed cotton.

The sleeves were easy to put together, with some added top-stitching, of course!

It's not really clear from the photos, but the head of the sleeve is shaped with four darts.  This is a very 1940s technique that I wish was used more often in contemporary designs as it gives a very nice shape through the shoulders.

While I am still not completely sold on the fit of the bodice, the dress does fit my body better than the dress form (which is always a good thing).  And honestly, the busy print takes care of disguising any issues.

Overall, I am proud of myself for working through the bodice problems and recognizing that it was better to recut and restitch those pieces instead of moving forward with a neckline fit that would have made me grumpy every time I looked at it.  

And I am happy to have finally stitched this design together.  The Donna Karan Vogue designs are always fun, even if this one gave me a bit of grief along the way.  And overall, she looks great!