RSS
Email
Twitter
Tumblr
Pinterest
As much as I am loathe to name something after a Barenaked Ladies song, I’ve always enjoyed the line “But not a real green dress, that’s cruel” since I could never imagine what was cruel about green dresses. What’s cruel about this dress is its impossibility to be photographed; I have no idea how to control depth of field on my camera so the white polka dots seem to undulate in and out of focus in a way that makes me rather seasick.
Anyway. A couple of weeks ago I linked to the Giddy With Polka Dots dress that I fell in love with and immediately wanted to create something like it. Naturally, the pattern used for the dress was no longer available at Fabricland so I went with Simplicity 2444 because the last Project Runway pattern I used was quite good but also because stripped of all the various embellishments you can add, the shell of the dress is pretty straightforward and can be used as a base for tons of other modifications.
The dress itself came together quickly but my god did the collar make me want to take my own life. This is a self-drafted collar and naturally, since I’ve never done this before, I had to make it four times. FOUR. TIMES. I exaggerate slightly; I had to make one half of it four times, the other half was perfectly fine the second time out. The shorter piece of the asymmetrical collar kept being about an inch too short even though I kept adding more than enough fabric to lengthen it. The facings are also a little on the short side, but at least I can blame the pattern for that?
Originally I had thought I was going to pipe the edges of the collar in white, which you can see in the first version of the collar here. Once I had it pinned on to the dress, though, it started to feel really old ladylike and I had to scrap it.
I think it still needs something around the waist but I haven’t decided what yet, whether it’s some sort of buttoned tab thing or a belt or fabric tie.
at 9:45 pm
Good call on the no piping around the collar, I dont think it looks old-ladyish but to young. Maybe a piped belt?
at 5:14 am
Oh, I just finished this dress too! Your version is so lovely and the green is beautiful
at 7:59 am
@ Liz — I added some belt looks but I think I might just end up wearing a regular belt with it. I keep looking at the rejected remnants of my piped collar and I think that without a solid and bold white anywhere else on the dress, the piping might be too in your face (in your waist?) as a belt.
@ Allie — It’s such an easy pattern, isn’t it? The one thing I forgot to mention that I totally hated was the seam down the middle of the front of the skirt. The instructions make it look like you cut a single piece on the fold of the fabric and then out of nowhere in the instructions they’re like “Sew the front pieces together!” and I thought “Um, it’s one piece.” Next time I make this I’m going to cut it on the fold but just compensate for the seam allowances as if I had cut it as two separate pieces.