Make a Garment a Month–My November Dress Completed

Warning: this blog uses some questionable vocabulary.

I finished the dress in plenty of time but something held me back from blogging it – my fear of the selfie*. Ordinarily, I can get around this by using Brian, my dress form. But Sarah Liz, who hosts the garment a month challenge, said something about wanting photographs of participants wearing their finished garments. I am all in favour of this. One of the things I love about sewing blogs is the opportunity to see garments both worn and made by real human beings.

I have a little problem though. In my mind’s eye I am, of course, fantabulous. Photographic evidence suggests, however, that this state of fantabulousness** is more inner than external. I’ve had a few decades to come to terms with the impossibility of capturing my inner fantabulosity*** on camera. Yet, sad to say, to date nearly every photo has brought with it a sense of chagrin.

To cheer myself up I often look at one of Peter Lappin’s selfies on his blog. He looks so happy and delights in modelling his vintage dresses in progress. No shortage of fantabulosity there.

Sarah Liz also said something about ‘styling’. I didn’t go there. Maybe next time.

I used a late 1930s pattern, Simplicity 2476, making it up in a combination of op-shopped (poly- chiffon and a poly-cotton lining) and new fabric (Japanese printed cotton).

And here is the result:

Well, I’m glad I got that over with.

Modifications I made to the pattern were minimal. I only added a little extra width to the skirt.  As usual, I abandoned the instructions as necessary, doing things my own way. For example, I found the instructions for the pleat at the back of the skirt to transition from the buttons to a sewn seam perfectly incomprehensible.

The pattern instructions also differed from the picture on the envelope. The pattern envelope shows a line of gathering all the way across front high bust line.  The instructions instead divide the bust gathers into two sections, one above each breast with a flat bit in the middle. My visual imagination said ‘Euwwww!’ very loudly to this and I opted to follow the envelope.

If it hadn’t been for the poly-chiffon, this dress would have been easy to sew. I have made a mental note to never again attempt to use a poly-chiffon for a raised waistline with two triangular points. The fabric was so hard to manipulate, frayed while I was looking at it, and almost impossible to sew straight. Unpicking mistakes was best avoided.

I wore this dress to an end of year party held by the Queensland Society of Editors. It was very comfortable and cool.

Notes

*In the Oxford Dictionary online. It’s not in the Macquarie, it will probably take another 20 years. It took them about that long to recognise ‘misogyny’.

**Not in any dictionary that I know of.

*** Nor is this.