M7282 New Years Dress

Happy New Year!!! I am certainly looking forward to adventuring through 2016 with you all and developing my sewing skills further. 2015 brought about some big changes for me. Sewing-wise, 2015 was the year I decided to upgrade sewing from something I partook in when the right mood (seldom) hit, to something I do regularly with some level of skill (however beginner that level may be). I turned 28 this year, and leading up to it I kept thinking, if not now, when? In the interest of speeding up my development, I invested in 5 months of sewing classes at Tchad's Sewing School , and later started this blog (to give my fickle and sometimes dreamy nature some structure). Having a blog to report back to has definitely kept me sewing long hours at times, but I don't mind it. It's good for me to work towards something I do purely for the love. My only sewing goal for 2016 is to just keep sewing and documenting it in this blog. It's an obtainable goal, as I believe goals always should be.

Onto the dress, shall we? M7282, you were a doozie. So I made like, 80 muslins, right? I thought I was set.  I chose silk crepe de chine from Mood Fabrics. I wanted to make this dress from a quality fabric without breaking the bank. Crepe de chine seems to be the most affordable of the silks, so I snatched up a couple yards. I followed everyone's instructions for cutting silk and cut it on top of thick paper so as not to stretch, pull, or distort my pieces. This worked beautifully and would probably be useful for other flowy lightweight fabrics as well. The lining I used is a nude-colored poly-blend thin mesh lining fabric? Not sure what it's called, but the lady at Vogue Fabrics recommended it as the runner up to silk charmeuse when it comes to lining fabrics.

Both the silk and lining went together without issues. Even the zipper was painless. I ran into problems when cutting and sewing the straps. I initially decided to cut the straps out of a pretty, sparkly contrast mesh fabric. The pattern called for French seams, and I thought, why not? What could go wrong here? EVERYTHING. Everything could go wrong, and did. The French Seams created too much bulk in the kind of stiff mesh fabric I had chosen, so I just cut out the outer seam thinking the inner seam would do just fine. I was wrong. The straps came apart in my hands after cutting the outer seam in a truly awful and foreboding way. Long story short, I cut and sewed three sets of straps before cutting the fourth set from the same silk as the rest of the dress and going forward with those. I was totally not keeping my cool during this process, creating and discarding straps at a dangerous pace. Once I finally made the straps out of silk, it came together nicely.

I adjusted the skirt in several places to give it more of a tulip shape. I kind of wish I had matched the lining color to the silk as it peaks out on the v-neck at times. The hem was a bit of challenge for me as well. I hand-sewed it as cleanly as I could, but it doesn't hang quite as smoothly as I would like. That said, I think I did a pretty good job; but it's not perfect by any measure. I initially attached the lining to the hem by hand as well, but this created a whole lot of bulk and pull. I ended up detaching the lining and just sewing a separate hem on the lining with my machine and letting it hang freely. It is attached at the back kick pleat to keep it from showing there. I still think this pattern needs some kind of bust shaping to make it fit me better, but I just didn't have time with this version. Next time I make this pattern that will definitely be a priority.

Even though this pattern calls for thin, lightweight fabrics, I have a sneaking suspicion it might be better with a sturdier, medium-weight fabric. I'm guessing the weight of my lining fabric in relation to  the weight of the silk caused some of the issues at the neckline and hem.

All in all, I'm pleased with this dress. I wore it to a nice restaurant on NYE, and to take some pics at the Art Institute (above), and I won't take issue to wearing it in public again, so that's a step forward for me! I spent NYE with my Keith, chewing on a big juicy steak, glass of champaign in one hand, cocktail in the other; it was a good night. Unfortunately, most of the pictures turned out like this:

Well, I think I've said it all for this one! Now that the holidays are behind us, I think I'm ready for Spring...

Until next time.

xoxo,

Amy