This pattern came out in October, when I was thinking about the sew frosting challenge. In theory, I would have whipped up this fantastic ruffly dress in time for the challenge! In reality, nope.
First of all, it's actually a top (here.) The dress is an add-on extra. And I was committed to making this dress from literally the first minute I saw the pattern. It had nothing to do with sensible, or with what I needed, etc. I mean, clearly what I needed was...the layer cake dress.
Thus started an odyssey. In Flagstaff, there is no fabric, and I didn't need just one perfect fabric but two perfect matching fabrics in different materials. I started out with the silk-cotton voile that later became a Metamorphic dress (here) and some dun-coloured cotton twills which were too thick and didn't match well. I considered silk noil to go under the voile, but it was not quite the same shade of blue and I wasn't convinced. In December, my cousin asked me to make him pants and so I bought some random fabrics at Mood, including a perfect forest green cotton poplin. Now for the voile...I hunted far and wide and knew my goal was in sight when I discovered cotton-silk voile at The Fabric Store. The Colourway is Abbey Pool Y.
I went by my measurements on the pattern envelope and planned to cut out a 38, forgetting that I have made i am patterns before (here's the Cassiopee) and they are boxy and oversized. I did spend a lot of time looking at the model pictures before I decided to lop off a good 6" I think of the length. I took half from the bottom and half from the middle of the bottom layer, meaning I also shortened the bottom ruffle. I didn't make any other changes to the pattern.
I wasn't in any rush to sew this up. I hemmed all the ruffles manually with a micro hem, that took a day or two, then I put the dress together -it's quite fun to see the pieces come together, and see how far I've moved from my ruffle-and gathering-hating stance?
The collarstand and collarfell (what a perfect name for it!) were fine though I suspect instructions elsewhere are better (the Deer and Doe Bruyere comes to mind as having very nice instructions). Mine is fine. Not quite perfect. I topstitched the collar to make it look neater, as I also did on the button bands.
As for the buttons...the shitty sewing machine sort of made most of them ok. Enough that I could get the buttons into them once. They are definitely the worst buttonholes I've ever made. The best news is that this dress is so huge, I can pull it on over my head and will never open the buttons. Success!
The worst quality bit is the armhole binding. I was using store bought binding and despite that it gathered all over the place. There's a funny angle at the depth of the armhole that I struggled to get around, and if you look at it with any attention you can see that it's not well done. I tried to iron everything flat, with limited success.
I was a bit fragile feeling after some of these weak efforts - bad buttonholes, only ok collar, terrible armholes...
Then I realised once I put on this massive dress that no one will ever notice any of that because I have created a masterpiece of ridiculousness. To prove it is streetworthy, I applied my cardigan and smooshed the ruffles into compliance. The wind also arrived, to help keep things interesting and show you the way the ruffles shift about.
Apologies for so many photos, I had a lot of fun and figured I'd share them all.
Everyone at work deemed this dress adorable.
But I will make the next one in a size 34. When it's time for the next one.
First of all, it's actually a top (here.) The dress is an add-on extra. And I was committed to making this dress from literally the first minute I saw the pattern. It had nothing to do with sensible, or with what I needed, etc. I mean, clearly what I needed was...the layer cake dress.
Thus started an odyssey. In Flagstaff, there is no fabric, and I didn't need just one perfect fabric but two perfect matching fabrics in different materials. I started out with the silk-cotton voile that later became a Metamorphic dress (here) and some dun-coloured cotton twills which were too thick and didn't match well. I considered silk noil to go under the voile, but it was not quite the same shade of blue and I wasn't convinced. In December, my cousin asked me to make him pants and so I bought some random fabrics at Mood, including a perfect forest green cotton poplin. Now for the voile...I hunted far and wide and knew my goal was in sight when I discovered cotton-silk voile at The Fabric Store. The Colourway is Abbey Pool Y.
I went by my measurements on the pattern envelope and planned to cut out a 38, forgetting that I have made i am patterns before (here's the Cassiopee) and they are boxy and oversized. I did spend a lot of time looking at the model pictures before I decided to lop off a good 6" I think of the length. I took half from the bottom and half from the middle of the bottom layer, meaning I also shortened the bottom ruffle. I didn't make any other changes to the pattern.
I wasn't in any rush to sew this up. I hemmed all the ruffles manually with a micro hem, that took a day or two, then I put the dress together -it's quite fun to see the pieces come together, and see how far I've moved from my ruffle-and gathering-hating stance?
The collarstand and collarfell (what a perfect name for it!) were fine though I suspect instructions elsewhere are better (the Deer and Doe Bruyere comes to mind as having very nice instructions). Mine is fine. Not quite perfect. I topstitched the collar to make it look neater, as I also did on the button bands.
As for the buttons...the shitty sewing machine sort of made most of them ok. Enough that I could get the buttons into them once. They are definitely the worst buttonholes I've ever made. The best news is that this dress is so huge, I can pull it on over my head and will never open the buttons. Success!
The worst quality bit is the armhole binding. I was using store bought binding and despite that it gathered all over the place. There's a funny angle at the depth of the armhole that I struggled to get around, and if you look at it with any attention you can see that it's not well done. I tried to iron everything flat, with limited success.
I was a bit fragile feeling after some of these weak efforts - bad buttonholes, only ok collar, terrible armholes...
Then I realised once I put on this massive dress that no one will ever notice any of that because I have created a masterpiece of ridiculousness. To prove it is streetworthy, I applied my cardigan and smooshed the ruffles into compliance. The wind also arrived, to help keep things interesting and show you the way the ruffles shift about.
Apologies for so many photos, I had a lot of fun and figured I'd share them all.
Everyone at work deemed this dress adorable.
But I will make the next one in a size 34. When it's time for the next one.
