Summer Fling dress by Sew this Pattern (aiming for perfection) (not there yet)

It was a few months ago. Summer. About to go to Tahiti.  Time to make another summer fling dress and give away the last one!  

This is bye bye birdie fabric by Atelier Brunette. It was stashed so long...that it has been faded by the sun.  I love it so much that I kept saving it for that dreamy perfect project, and I expected this version of the dress to be a real winner and therefore a good use of said special fabric.  

I got out my pattern pieces and got cracking.  The one thing I overlooked, despite having the previous dress in the sewing room with me, is that I DID narrow the previous dress 1" on the side seams.  I did not adjust this on the pattern, and I thought I had, and I didn't check.  

The previous dress, Liberty poplin, is very heavy and feels disproportionately long on me, so I never wear it.  I still wear the first version at times though it was more beach-life appropriate and not so mountain-life appropriate, so I wear it less than I did in Gisborne. 

 

This fabric is a lot lighter.  I adjusted the straps to pull at a better angle than previously and was meticulous about measuring the lengths so it wouldn't hang too long, but without the side seam adjustment it did not end up being a great improvement.  Oddly, the dress seems to hang lower than expected, but I think it's just lower in the armpit and that makes it feel that way.  I gave this dress to a friend and kept the blue one for now -- after assessing it while making the new one I think I can salvage it by cutting off each tier and shortening them, but I really hate gathering, so I'll have to be in the right mood to tackle it.  Next summer...

I do think it is finally time to stop the delaying.  This dress can handle being made in silk even with a lot of body, and I have silks from Thailand languishing patiently.  I need to be really meticulous to get it right though.  Plans: shorten each tier, including the bodice, by 1-2" (assess first!) Ensure bodice narrowed, and pin the bias in place to try on before committing.  The strap angles seem to be consistently good now.  The change I made between versions 1 and 2 was to do the underarm bias binding as one piece (front and back underarm) and to do another long bias binding piece from one side of the back, creating the strap, crossing the front, and etc.  This method fixed the weird kink I had in the front of the first dress, where the underarm and the bodice bias binding came together to form the strap.   

I've used the pockets from the Bardon dress, because they are like having a purse at your side.  They are amazing pockets.   

Watch this space!  I have three lengths of silk ikat I keep trying to commit to cutting into and I'm determined this dress will be one of them, but I'm not sure which one yet.

Summer fling dress by Sew This Pattern, take 2

When I made my first version of the pattern I left it short because I ran out of fabric.  I knew I wanted a second one both to try out the full length and to see if I could get the bodice to sit perfectly.  My changes were hard to track in terms of how long the straps should be, and the direction of force on them. 

I noticed that the bust darts were way (2") below my bust, and in fact if I pulled the entire bodice up by 2" it sat better under my arms too.

The armscye bias binding made a kind of 90 degree turn where it hit the top edge of the bodice front, going out over the shoulders. 

I could lower the back a tiny bit more.

The pockets are great but could be higher - I used the bardon dress pockets (Elbe Textiles) and they are MASSIVE - hah, almost as long as the first dress.

With these thoughts in mind and actually much deep reflection, I decided this needed to be the first dress this year because I had been thinking about it so long.  I bought the fabric last year, it's Liberty Poplin, and because I actually bought it for this project, I did buy enough.  I used the same bias for the front neck, over the shoulders, and the back.  I did shorter bias strips under the armscye.  That meant I had to keep a centre back seam.  I took about 1" off the width, raised the darts 1" and just removed a smidge more off the back while adding about 1" to the armpit coverage.  I decided not to shorten the straps to raise the front to where it probably should be, because the location of the front neckline suits me and I didn't want to change too much at once.  I used the Bardon pockets but put them higher.

 

 

 

The bodice seems long, but it should be standard length, maybe the weight of the dress pulls it longer.

 

 

This feels like a lot more dress compared to my first version, but that's always the problem with multiple versions of a thing.  They won't be the same, nor should they be!  Since spring is now flowering I will hopefully start to wear this and we will see if I love it as much as I loved my very short version 1. 

Summer Fling dress review by Sew This Pattern

Multi-tier dresses for summer! Yes! Gathers forever! Yes! Low cut back! ...hm. 

I saw a dress in a shop that inspired this dress with its modifications.  The dress in the shop was made with something like 6 metres of Liberty lawn, and cost a hot $700 (very heavy too!)  It had a low cut U back gathered into the bias binding - a thing I didn't even think was possible until I saw it.  

This is the Summer Fling top pattern, with dress expansion, by Sew This Pattern (a company I had never heard of before.)  When I discovered this pattern I thought it would be hackable into a nice version of what I'd seen - a bit less on the fabric use front, but also far more doable and not 10 kg!  I decided not to make a muslin of the original pattern, because I have an aversion to ties.  I cut size 8 based on my measurements, but I think the 6 might have been better. There's a huge amount of ease in this dress creating quite a lot of tenting, as well as a wide cut armscye, and the smaller size would have given a touch more coverage.  As it is I wear a normal bra and it's only visible a little bit on the side front.

To create the U back I basically lowered the curve on the back piece which is meant to go under the tie, and then just extended it into what I envisioned as the U shape, with the bias of the back and armscye  meeting almost at the same spot as in the original.  I was interested in lowering the triangle formed by the bias and the back bodice too but I wanted to keep the bias tape that goes over the shoulders at the same spot rather than changing too much at once.  I cut a little bit off that back triangle, but I ended up attaching the bias without changes - one of the reasons the dress may pull a bit more forward than it should.  I did a lot of pinning of bias and testing before I sewed it together.

I didn't have enough fabric for the bottom tier so this dress is pretty short! I did add pockets, using the Bardon dress pocket piece, which is huge - so this has massive pockets that are barely shorter than the whole dress.  

 The bias taping and gathered front were super straightforward, and this was a really fun and exciting make.  The final effect is absolutely wearable, and in fact I've been wearing it heaps.  The pockets are so big it's like a purse, it's short enough to wear on my bike, and it's possible I've ever worn it skateboarding...

 

The remaining issues are that the front pulls forward slightly.  The balance of the dress probably should be about 1 cm further back - something I knew I was mucking with, and that I wouldn't be able to judge with my first attempt.  The second part of that is that the bias edge of the neck creates a funny hump because it's designed to pull in around the back of the neck, not come out into a wide curved back.  In order to fix that I could give up on the perfection of my vision and do a X back version next.  The other alternative would be to use the bias piece from the front neck to continue as the straps, instead of the armscye piece.  I'm also going to take 1" from the side seam of the back and the back skirts, to see if that helps bring the dress further back and in to my body.  I will have enough fabric for the next version to have the full length skirt, which might also help with more weight to pull the dress into a better balance.  On the whole I'm really pleased with this make.