Oh my word, do I love this dress. It’s definitely one of my favourites and now that I’ve tweaked this pattern to death since Christmas, I intend to make thousands more.
This fabric is Michael Miller’s Disco Dots in the pink colourway. Normally I am not a designer fabric sort of person but it was being sold quite cheaply on a Facebook destash group and I bought all two metres, with no clear idea what I was going to make with it.
The best part about this fabric is the fact that the circles are not printed in the usual polka-dotted way, but laid out in a perfectly square grid. The PERFECT sort of arrangement for the pattern I drafted.
Frustratingly enough, the first thing my mother noticed was not the perfect pattern-matching down the front of the bodice, but that the circles along the neckline of the bodice aren’t in a perfect repeat (it wasn’t possible to do anyways). Sigh. Everyone’s a critic.
I won’t let it get to me though. I’m still over the moon with this dress. The construction went the same as the Christmas dress of the same pattern, but I couldn’t do pleats with this fabric. The width of fabric was just slightly too narrow to allow for it, but if I had done it, there would have been an uneven amount of pleats, and with a zip in the side seam, that mean the other side would have had a seam that didn’t match the pleats.
Yes, that’s the reason I procrastinated on this for so long on this particular project. My mannequin was like this for months:
Because I could not decide on what to do with the skirt. In the end, I think the gathers still look just as sweet as pleating would have looked.
If I had to do it again, I would cut the waist of the skirt across the circles instead of above them because I think it would look better. I very almost cut the hem at the edge of circles instead of halfway through them but luckily I pinned them up first to check what they would look like and I didn’t like it, so there are scallops at the hem now!
The ricrac is also something I don’t know if I would keep the next time. I felt almost obligated to border the fabric somehow to break up the white spaces between the circles against the skin but I don’t know if ricrac was the correct choice in this situation. Maybe white piping would have been better? Or even nothing at all. It’s hard to say now.
The lining isn’t sewn down so it may yet be taken out, ha.
I should really sew down the lining before I do these shoots but it’s by far my least-favourite part of sewing dresses. Lately with more and more practice with my Singer’s Swiss zigzagger (more the walking foot functionality on a straight stitch), it’s not been quite as painful… but I still hate doing it.
Unfortunately, that’s the reason you can see the lining peeking above the ricracs in the above photo. D’oh! Lesson learned, going to tack my lining down now.
So, lessons learned:
- Tack down your stupid lining, Demi
- Sometimes trim isn’t necessary, okay?
- Press that seam in the front to buggery before taking photos
That was a surprisingly short list. I must be improving, yay! Things I’m really happy about with this dress:
- Using the selvage as sew-in stabiliser for the zip
- Pattern matching down the front, obviously
- Learning how to use my blind hem attachment successfully
- Omitting back darts due to the fabric being cut on the bias!
- Successfully matching up the right pattern to the correct fabric, WHEEE
Anyways, that’s all you’ll get from me today. Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram or subscribe to my Twitch stream if you want to watch some hardcore speed sewing! Until the next dress…
2 Comments
Beautiful dress! I must say that your mother has eagle eyes; I would have never noticed that: “that the circles along the neckline of the bodice aren’t in a perfect repeat”. And I am probably her age.
I like the addition of rick rack; if you don’t, you could replace it with tiny piping. (At first I thought that was what it was)
Or nothing at all.
Gorgeous craftsmanship. I applaud you ?
“Eagle eyes”–let’s call them that :P
Yes the previous iteration had piping and it probably would have done better, I think. I’m learning more and more every day about what sort of trim is appropriate to which situation! It’s an art as much as it is a science, I think.
Thank you very much, Teri :)