dress for the festive season: not black but more glitter

This is going to be the last post of 2015. 

This month I finally had the time and materials to participate in the sew it up monthly competition. The theme of this month was less black, more glitter. I had the perfect fabric for that, a dark blue wool and and polyester blend with a wide glittering border weave. I bought it as a coupon and it was only a 1 meter 20 centimeter long. When I bought it I had the intention of making a skirt. But then I decided it had to be a dress. I prefer dresses anyway and special for special occasions a dress feels more festive. 

So then I had to find a pattern dat I could make with only 1.2 meters of fabric. At first I thought it was going to be impossible. I didn't just want a straight tube/ A-line dress. But then I realised that if I altered the pattern for the Lora dress (my first version) a bit it could work. I also needed to be sure that the pattern would have the right length, shortening it would make the glittering border smaller. So I shortened the sleeves and didn't make any pockets. By doing this I just managed to squize the dress out of it. I made one big mistake, I cut the back bodice piece on the fold . But because I needed the zip in the back I had to cut it open. So I was left without a seam allowance for the zip. Fortunately the fabric had a bit of stretch to it so I just used a minimum seam allowance for the zip. The fabric is also really itchy, I lined the bodice and the skirt with a dark grey venezia lining. I was planning to line the entire dress including the sleeves. I tried but because the lining doesn't have stretch it was to restricting. So I just put up with the scratchy bits. It is worth it!!

I wore the dress for Christmas and my entire family loved it and I'm going to wear it again on new years eve. I just don't have the time to make more than one dress so I just wear the same one for the entire festive period. 

Best wishes for 2016! 

Christmas party dress

I already made a top of the AVA dress by Victory patterns, my blue AVA top. So I already know how the pattern looks on me. The flower printed fabric used to be a skirt, with a very ugly elasticated waist. I never wore the skirt but I really liked the fabric. The fabric I used for the dress comes from the ‘stoffen spectakel’ in Hasselt. I walked up and down the entire marked twice to find the right colour to match to the fabric of the skirt. I was looking for a tick cotton or other woven fabric, but I could not find any in the right colour.

I made the dress in size in size 4 without any changes. Last time I made a size 6 but ended up way to big. I was afraid that the size 4 would still be too big because of the stretch in the fabric. The fabric that I used is a cotton jersey that has barely any stretch to it, but it is still a jersey knit. On the positive side because of the stretchy fabric I didn’t need a zip.

This time I realised what I needed to do with all the pattern pieces. (You only need pieces G and H if you use very thin or lace fabric.) But I didn’t make my own binding, the fabric shifted too much. I did use it on the hem of the dress because I wanted to integrate the fabric on another place than just the top. But the finish isn’t neat, but you can’t see that on the outside!) My grandmother gave me bias tape in a matching colour. The binding looks a lot better on the dress than on the top I made last year. This time it lays nearly flat to the skin.

I love to twirl around in the dress it is such a flowy fabric. I wore the dress on Christmas and got a lot of compliments.