The Dress That Was Finally Made: Conclusion

Photo a'la six-year-old.

You will note that this looks nothing like the original pattern. The top of the bodice is the same, but I added extra darts to avoid the tent, then further added a waistband to add more definition to the tent waist, which resulted in a skirt gathered even more than the smaller sizes in the original pattern. The bottom band was added to lengthen the skirt.

I actually finished this several days ago, but it still needs a minor adjustment.



The neckline gapes because even though I managed to get the bust to fit with darts I neglected the width of the top of the bodice. I'm thinking I might just pin the neckline to one side and add a fabric flower, but I haven't decided yet.

So I learned a lot, but I also think that the original dress itself is not what I imagined. From the photo, it looked to be a fitted dress, which it was not at all. It was an empire waist with gathers, made to look like a fitted dress with ties that were supposed to wrap around the waist to add definition (and which I omitted completely since I inserted a fitted waistband).

This was my first test in adjusting the construction of a dress, so I'm now starting to look a lot closer at the line-drawn schematics on the backs of patterns. It turns out that this pattern for some reason didn't have a schematic on the pattern envelope, oddly enough, so that wouldn't have been a help in this case.

But despite that, it did have some fun dressmaking details, including facing, which was both fun (look at this sewing from the inside of the armhole action!):


And terrifying (clipping seams always makes me nervous, but it truly made a difference in finishing the armholes!):


And had another chance to insert an invisible zipper. Those things are so cool.

Remember the skirt from the original ill-fated fabric combination? I added my newfound friend, the dart, drafted a new bodice with a v-neck based on the original pattern, and ended up with this:



Still a bit tent-like, so I will probably add the ties shown in the original pattern, but the darts create a cleaner look than the gathers from the original pattern.

I'll leave you with my continued obsession with the invisible zipper.

Now you see it:


Now you don't:


(Photos are facing opposite directions, pardon any confusion).

Still fascinates me.