At first I thought to combine different materials for the dress (light denim perhaps) and maybe throw in some lace. Then I wanted something a bit 50's inspired with big skirt and perhaps tiny puffed sleeves. I also planned to make a wide, corset-like belt in darker blue.
My pedantic habit of making
quick mock ups might have saved trouble this time too. For
the first thing the bodice was way too large, especially
at the waist. The material was thin but rather stiff, so
the extra width looked bad. The wide belt might easily
hide that, but as I tried on a strip of material to get an
idea how the belt would look like, I began to have doubts
about it too. And the skirt, which was quite wide at my
hips, looked terrible. A super fluffy ruffle petticoat
might of course make it look nicer, but I was not sure
about that either anymore. I tried to pin some of the
fullness into pleats, which helped a little. I even begun
the ruffle skirt/lining, but as I was left with the
impression of a really badly fitting and generally boring
dress, and also had more urgent projects to finish, the
dress ended up in a plastic bag in the closet.
A year passed. One of those first sunny days in early
summer (or late winter), when you begin to dream about
summer and summer clothes, I suddenly remembered this
dress again. I found the plastic bag with the unfinished
dress, a heap of material scraps, neatly folded lining
material and even the zipper intended for it. I tried it
on with some curiosity if my memory served right. Sure it
still had problems, but I realized again how much I liked
the material, and generally had a better day than at the
last fitting and thus didn't hate everything I put on. So,
I decided to give it another chance.
I had lost some weight, so I
had to take in even more than I had thought. This time I
was not so fond of the big skirt idea any more, but had a
vision of a rather simple summer dress instead. I didn't
really want to cut so much away from the skirt seams, so I
put the extra width in the hips into large pleats on the
seams, only taking some off from the side seams. It worked
fairly well. I also cut the hem a bit shorter to get a
more easy, relaxed feel to the dress.
I made mock up piece for the
puffed raglan sleeves, but my first version looked so
boring I decided to leave the sleeves and do just shoulder
straps instead. Simple straight straps would have been so
easy, but of course I got it into my head to shape them a
bit. At last I got more or less the shape I wanted, and by
that time I wanted to shape the neckline a bit too. At
this point I had to decide between adding a lining or not.
The material was quite tightly wowen and surprisingly
non-transparent for a thin white fabric, but then again, a
lining is always the safe option.
The piece of cotton batiste I
had originally bought for the lining turned out to be too
short (as I had planned to make the big ruffles on the
hem), but I cut as long lining as I could, planning to add
a flounce later. Cutting the lining had one slight
problem, however, and that was that I had no idea anymore
what seam allowances I had used for the neckline, or how
many times I had altered the bocide fit in total and how
much and where – I had marked some of my changes on the
patterns but probably not all. Comparing the pattern to
the dress which might have already stretched a bit on the
fittings was not a fool-proof method either. In the end,
with some guessing, I managed to cut the lining which
happily seemed to fit in nicely enough.
But sewing the lining on the neckline was not the end of
it. I realised that having originally planned the raglan
sleeves, the cut of the armholes was not way too straight
to look graceful with the slightly shaped shoulder straps.
So, some more sewing-trying on-sewing followed. I also
shaped the neckline a bit in the front, and in the end
even suddenly wanted to have a v-shaped neckline at the
back. I have no idea why, since I always wear my hair open
anyway, so details in the back are pretty much wasted.
Well, having gotten the idea I shaped the back. As the
body curves inwards between shoulder blades v-shaped back
like this easily flaps at the edges, so I stitched a piece
of ribbon on the seam, pulling it a bit tighter. Thus the
neckline turned out to fit very nicely. So, at last the
top part of the dress was finished.
As the dress was so very simple now, I wanted at least some detail apart from the pattern, so I made little shaped straps that can be tied on the shoulder straps forming scarf-like bow details. They also work to fasten the bra straps on the shoulder straps of the dress! As they are separate, they are easy to laundry and iron too.
For the last thing I bought more batiste (this time a lot of it, as I use this material a lot) and made a flounce to finish the lining.
Another lesson to be learned from this project might be
that planning you project well saves a lot of work. If I
had gotten my final idea at once I can imagine how fast I
would have finished this dress. A mock up is much more
convenient for planning the neckline shape than a half
finished dress. But then again, life doesn't always go the
way I had planned either, and I the end, after many ideas
and much extra work I got a very nice little dress.
