Although, I started this dress as I do with every other garment, by following the directions to a T, I got a little sloppy by the end when it was time to finish the hem. It’s not entirely even, I’m sure, and the hem is all machine stitched and a little messy. Maybe it’s because I spent the better part of Sunday making the dress that I wanted to try to finish it within the day (or finish it for the most part, since I still had a few finishing touches to do before I could call it “complete”). I kept telling myself, while I was haphazardly sewing the hem, “I’m the only one wearing this, this is not going in a competition, and I wouldn’t do this on a garment for someone else.” Meh, it made me feel better.

Regardless, I’m very happy of the way it turned out!

Continue reading »

This dress was meant to be made last year, since last year’s Pantone color was Tangerine. Oh well, better late than never!

While poking around on the internet, I came across Leanne Marshall’s etsy shop. Mostly, she sells wedding gown samples that she’s made on there, and I fell in love with the lace, tea-length dresses she sold. I so wanted one for myself. I was planning to design my own, but fortunately, found a pattern for one from Vogue.

Vogue 8766 – Style F

I wanted to stay away from the “wedding look” so I decided to choose a different color than ivory or white. Searching around the fabric websites for some not-too-expensive lace fabric, I found a bright tangerine lace and paired it with a pink broadcloth for the underlining, both from Fabric.com.

It arrived in the mail and sat in the closet. It sat and sat. I must have been working on other projects in the meantime, so it just sat. Sometimes I’d look at it and think, “If only I wasn’t working on *whatever it was that I was working on*” or “If only I wasn’t too lazy to look at the pattern envelope to figure out what else I needed to make this (which turned out to be just a zipper, thread, and ribbon)”. Fortunately, due to my not-yet-employed state, I was able to start this dress.

The “sequins”, which are holographic dots stuck to the fabric, shed a bit in the wash. I wasn’t overly fond of them in the first place, so I’m okay with that. The skirt on this dress is a large circle skirt, so cutting out the pattern has been interesting, to say the least. Also, since the lace part is lace, or because the tracing paper I’m using is wearing out, it’s been difficult to see my tracing line. I’ve already ripped the pattern and tracing paper by vigorously tracing over the lines to get a clear marking of where I’m suppose to cut. And, I missed where I was suppose to cut and cut into my fabric at one point too. Oops! I’m going to try to fix it with some light interfacing, and maybe a darning stitch if it’s too obvious. It’s near the seam allowance, so I’m hoping it won’t be noticeable at all!

Before I head to bed, I’ve gotten all my pieces cut out from the underlining and the lace. Even though my blue carbon tracing paper was wearing out so much that I couldn’t see it anymore on the lace, I still managed to finished. Sure, I had to copy my sleeve pattern to a piece of tracing paper and cut it out, but I still finished! I left my project in the beginning stages, where I now need to baste the underlining and lace together for the bodice–along the edges and darts, and try not to get any tailor tacks stuck in between the two. Fun! Probably best if I leave that for tomorrow when I’m fresh in my mind.