Sunday, December 27, 2009

Spring colorblock dress in the middle of winter

For once, I'm ahead of the game! Well, really I'm very late, since this dress started in - wow-has-it-been-that-long - three months ago.

Without further ado:




A close-up of the mock buckle, inspired by a J. Crew dress, and also to cover up the seam because I didn't cut the band on fold:


Here's me modeling it:




The end of the zipper is usually a struggle. As you can see here, it's all wonky. (Anybody have any tips on how to solve this? I use the regular zipper foot to connect the back seam and the zipper-end, and it usually ends up bunchy.)
Also, the sloper calls for a back shoulder dart, which I did not transfer to the pattern, thinking it wouldn't make a difference. Apparently it does: the back neck band is too big and now it gaps away from the body. Lesson learned.


The dress itself is fully lined in self fabric. I pretty much winged the construction part of it, with the help of my new best friend, the seam ripper. It's not completely finished yet, actually. Hemming needs to be done (still can't figure out how to use blind-stitch foot and am dreading hand-sewing), and hook-and-eye fastener needs to be attached.

Generally it fits a little loose on me now, because I've shrunken a bit because of a little diet and exercise. It's good news, actually. I feel physically better, am sleeping better (didn't really need help on that department), and theoretically should be looking better in clothes because the boobs are now correctly positioned "above" and not "at" the waist. Although, it also means I have to draft a new sloper.

7 comments:

  1. You can try ironing the zipper teeth away from the rest of the zipper before you sew. I find that it helps a bit

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  2. That's a great dress. Very cute, love the colours!

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  3. I agree - great colors! Good luck with the zipper.

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  4. i would resew the horizontal seams between the colours to fix the zip issues. So unpick the zip a little and take in between the white and red on the left side a few mm.
    Hope that makes sense! Lovely dress, x missymay

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  5. So cool! I love seeing how you interpreted your inspiration, a fantastic outcome indeed.

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  6. This is a lovely dress. It's nice that you were inspired by an existing garment but gave it your own twist rather than just knocking it off...
    Also thanks for your comment on my White Flowery top, I'd love to see how yours turned out, is it posted somewhere here ? I couldn't seem to find it...

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