Wow, since my last post winter has turned to the peak of summer. While not quite true to my sewing output (there has been a Suzon blouse, two Stellan T-shirts and one Hemlock in organic cotton since the knitted hat), it does reflect the fact that I have cut down on sewing and knitting A LOT. But that only makes me more excited about the things that I do make. Most recently, the dress in the above photo. So let's talk about that!
First things first though, apologies for the slight blurriness of these photos. I edited them on my phone, and when I copied them to my laptop the resolution was less than ideal. But I don't have time to re-edit them (another make is already photographed and waiting to be edited!). Hopefully they are clear enough to show how the dress came out.
Right, disclaimers out the way, onto the dress.
This dress, like many, started with the fabric. Last year a friend gifted me some beautiful viscose challis that she purchased for me in Pakistan (how sweet?!). I immediately thought it would look fantastic as a wrap dress, and the v9251 seemed like the perfect choice. I'd never made it, but I had seen plenty around the Internets and they all looked fantastic.
Before I made it up in this special fabric though I decided to try the pattern in a different one, in case it needed modifications. And I'm glad I did.
The short story is that this was quick and easy to sew and the finished result looks great, but I'm not super happy with it.
Here's why. I initially decided to make the short version of the curved hem (view A, but shorter still). But then when I cut it like that and tried it on I didn't like how it looked, and decided that I'd rather have a straight hem. However, at that point I had cut away too much fabric in order to make the curved hem. So I did the best of the situation and straightened it as much as possible. But that means that the front piece that wraps over the other is cut somewhat on the diagonal, which presents one major issue. This is that it doesn't wrap over properly, and the lightest gust of wind blows the dress open.
This is easily fixed with a safety pin or two, but ideally that's not something I want to think about whenever I wear it. It's bad enough with RTW wrap dresses, where throwing modesty out the window by scrimping on fabric seems to be the norm - the beauty of homemade clothing to me is as least partly to solve such sartorial issues.
(Ugh, the photo that made me realise I needed a hair cut badly.)
I have modified the ties, by making them longer and leaving a small hole in one side seam to thread one through, which helps with the bust gaping, because I can just tie them tighter. But it's not ideal.
But, this was the purpose of making the dress in a different fabric - to figure out what changes I need to make. And these are: bodice one size smaller, cut skirt straight rather than curved and wide enough to wrap over fully, keep ties modification. I also think I'll underline the next one. Mainly because the fabric I want to make it in has a white base and it might be see-through otherwise.
However, despite all the issues with this one I really do like it. It's super feminine and looks effortlessly nice. And the fabric is just dreamy. But the wrap blowing open is a real problem. So I'm tempted to cut it into blouse length and just wear it with jeans. I think that would be a really cute look and would let me get a lot more wear out of it. Not to mention that it would reduce the need for safety pins from three down to one!
It would be a bit of a shame if I don't keep it as a dress, but on the other hand, it makes me more eager to sew it in the fabric I have intended for it. Realistically that will be next summer, because at the ridiculously slow rate I'm sewing these days I won't get around to it until about November time. But that's ok, I am anyways going through a phase of disgust for producing too much clothing, memade or otherwise, (this is a topic for another post) so PhD-imposed lack of time for sewing suits me just fine now.
So in summary... v9251 turned out to be an as easy and fun pattern as it seemed from everybody else's makes and from this wearable toile I feel confident that I have learnt what I needed to do the lovely fabric from my friend justice.
What I did
Size: 12
Modifications: Straightened skirt pieces and shortened hem, made longer ties that wrap all the way around, and left an opening in one of the bodice side seams for the ties to go through.
Fabric: Wonderful blue floral viscose challis from Minerva Craft.
Time spent: One Sunday, including cutting of fabric.
What I'll do next time
Size: Bodice 10, skirt 12
Modifications: cut skirt pieces straight from the start, probably also shorten like this time. Keep long wrap around ties.
