Friday, July 30, 2010

five days in which I make two dresses

Monday I got overly excited at Walmart and bought a pattern and some fabric. Which turned into this:




What a hot fricken mess. Like the awkward girl who made her prom dress the night before even though she'd never touched a sewing machine in her life. The fit is pretty terrible, perhaps because those damn lanky models on the pattern have no hips and I have enough hips to choke a horse.

So I gave it another go yesterday and ended up with this:



Better. I took the waist up and decided short cutesy sleeves are never going to be a good idea for me.



That is 200 inches of unhemmed skirt right there. Waiting to get back to JoAnn's to pick up bias tape to match the neck and arm openings. So much easier than what the pattern called for -- lining the bodice and flipping it inside to finish the neckline/arms. Which is fine and dandy and nifty... except it made the bodice of the red dress lumpy and horrible.



And this bodice is not so lumpy. And I just happen to have a decorative stitch on my machine that matches the vines on the fabric. Which means of course I had to use it.



I did line this second one, but in my own little way. As in... I lined it for modesty but attached the pieces as I did the seams. So it's not perfectly clean on the inside of the bodice, but it's so much better fitting this way.


Pattern: McCalls 6027, the red dress is view B, the blue dress is view A

Fabric: red dress is basic cotton from Walmart $2 a yard, blue dress is calico print from JoAnn's on sale for $2.79 a yard

Modifications: Red dress I did what the pattern said. Blue dress... I ignored the pattern completely other than cutting out the pieces. I constructed it differently for the skirt and the bodice lining and did my own thing.

1 comment:

  1. The blue dress is lovely and looks a much more flattering design anyway than the red one. They look like completely different dresses!!

    ReplyDelete

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