I have managed to finish a dress in time to wear out this evening for New Years. A shameless copy of the vintage simplicity 3965, inspired by the gorgeous versions that Tasia has made (the slight resemblance of the fabric to her 'twin spruce dress' is cooindidental, and due to the minimal selection I had to choose from). I used a cotton lawn that was on sale at Spotlight, and it's lined with a batiste. Sadly there wasn't enough fabric left on the roll for me to make the skirt as full as I would have liked.
However as I didn't have the pattern I made my own - my first go at making my own pattern from scratch. I used the block that Sandra helped me make back in May at the Perth BSC meet, but as I've lost some weight since then the front piece needed to be taken in a fair bit. Then, with some help from my mum, I drew on the neckline I wanted, and once i was happy transferred my changes onto paper. The skirt is just a big gathered rectangle.
As my new sewing ethos is "Pockets, pockets pockets", I added some in seam pockets 1/3 of the way around the skirt. I think the side seams may have been a better choice but we'll see once I've worn it a bit.
The back neckline is a probably a little wide near the shoulders, as my bra straps peek out sometimes, but nothing too disasterous. I used some grosgrain ribbon to stablilise the waistline like Tasia did on her twin spruce dress. And something else I'd never done before, a hand picked zipper (using Tasia's tutorial). I love how it looks, and I'm hoping that it's nice and strong.
Now I'll be on the look out for a cute belt to wear with it.
This is lovely! It's just like the Twin Spruce dress, you've captured that vintage vibe perfectly. Excellent work creating your own pattern, handpicking the zipper and using the grosgrain ribbon in the waist. It's a beautiful summery dress!
ReplyDeleteThis dress looks great and the zipper looks perfect!
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