Wedding Guest Dresses
Say that 3 times fast. haha. Anywho, my sister in law is getting married in April and we were invited! I mean, I figured we would be, but I was still excited to get the invite in the mail. :) Anywho, I needed a dress to wear that would be good for a cooler spring day but also comfy in case it got warm in the sun. Insert Simplicity 2053!
Moo... could you not.
Moo... seriously...
Ok fine... ((sigh))
I really liked the side pleats so I decided that this was the one. Again, I did not make a muslin, although I should. That is kind of my unofficial New Years resolution; to make muslins more. It really is worth it in the end. Anywho, I had this awesome deep red sweater knit fabric from the thrift store and it was just enough to make this dress. However, in my haste to get it done (for what reason I don't know, since its not needed until April) I wasn't paying 100% attention. Surprise surprise. I was actually cutting this out while I was at work, so that might have been why. But its not 100% my fault. My sew-jo was gone for a while. Like, completely gone. I was not in a sewing mood for a month or two. I just didn't want to do it. And all of a sudden one day, it was back with a vengeance! I needed to sew something, anything! Ever since then, I have been sewing pretty much every night after dinner for at least 2 hours. But that also means that almost all I think about is sewing while I'm at work cause its in the same room with me. So on slowish days at work (in between calls) I would cut out something. Sometimes I would have cut out 2 dresses and even pinned together some of the seams. Sometimes it would be a pair of leggings or a pair of shorts. I just had to be physically doing something that had to do with sewing. While on calls, I can pin things together, mark pattern pieces and even hand baste stuff together. Seriously though, if I ever won the lottery I would spend all day sewing. After working out, of course. ;-)
Aaaaanyways, the moral of that story was that I cut something out wrong. It ended up kind of working out decently, but I immediately made a second version of this dress and cut it out correctly. See, I learned from my mistake! haha. Its best if I just show you what I did... prepare yourself.
The front...
Oh look, pleats on the left side of the bodice. Cool.
Wait, what the? Why are the skirt pleats on the other side?? Oh yeah, cause I'm a dumb ass.
The back...
See! Its not half bad! And really, it almost looks like some sort of pattern design. If I hadn't told you what I fucked up on, you might not have even noticed. Plus the pleats are not super noticeable anyways. It kind of looks like my dress is just bunched up in odd places. But I don't care, I like it! I did mess up the sleeves a little because I couldn't understand the directions. I had hand basted it during work and it looked odd, but I thought it would look better when I actually put the sleeve on the dress. Nope. So off they came and I moved the pleats to face each other on the inside and it looks a ton better now.
Nope.
Crappy and wrong
Aah... much better.
Aaaaand I made sure that the pattern to the fabric was all facing the same direction throughout the whole dress!!! I usually just cut out a pattern according to how much fabric I have, placing the pieces wherever I can, regardless of the grain of the fabric and how it is supposed to stretch or not stretch. For this one, I made sure that it would face the same way, but I also tried to make sure it was all laid out like its supposed to be. I was really proud of this one. I also did the pattern direction matching on another dress which I am almost done with. More to come on that one, soon.
See the little diamond thingies?
Also, the darts line up which mine almost never do. #perfectionist haha
I really like the back vent in the skirt and the length of the whole thing. The neckline sits nicely and the sleeve length is perfect. I did have a little trouble with the zipper as this is a knit fabric and even though I interfaced the zipper area, it still buckled a little. I topstitched it and it looks better, but its still a little wonky after I have been sitting and I go to stand until I pull the dress down a little and adjust it. No biggie. But for the second one I used another knit, but a thinner, slightly more stretchy one. For this one I did not want to add a zipper at all, so I made sure the way I placed the pattern on the fabric was to my greatest stretch advantage because it was going to be pulled over my head instead of being zipped into. I didn't have to worry about matching the pattern of the fabric because it was kind of a jumbled design which worked out very well.
Its rather pretty
The pleats don't come out well in the pics on this one. But you saw the red one, so you know basically what they should look like.
This dress was a tad shorter because I didn't have quite as much fabric as I did for the red one. The sleeves are also shorter because of the lack of fabric, but not in a bad way. Since this one is thinner, the slightly shorter sleeves kind of go with it for a spring/ early summer dress. It is an option if the day turns out to be a hot forecast.
So yeah, after 2 versions of this dress, I would definitely recommend it! Very easy and fun to make. And it has other versions, like a one sleeved option. I might try that one day.
Moo... could you not.
Moo... seriously...
Ok fine... ((sigh))
I really liked the side pleats so I decided that this was the one. Again, I did not make a muslin, although I should. That is kind of my unofficial New Years resolution; to make muslins more. It really is worth it in the end. Anywho, I had this awesome deep red sweater knit fabric from the thrift store and it was just enough to make this dress. However, in my haste to get it done (for what reason I don't know, since its not needed until April) I wasn't paying 100% attention. Surprise surprise. I was actually cutting this out while I was at work, so that might have been why. But its not 100% my fault. My sew-jo was gone for a while. Like, completely gone. I was not in a sewing mood for a month or two. I just didn't want to do it. And all of a sudden one day, it was back with a vengeance! I needed to sew something, anything! Ever since then, I have been sewing pretty much every night after dinner for at least 2 hours. But that also means that almost all I think about is sewing while I'm at work cause its in the same room with me. So on slowish days at work (in between calls) I would cut out something. Sometimes I would have cut out 2 dresses and even pinned together some of the seams. Sometimes it would be a pair of leggings or a pair of shorts. I just had to be physically doing something that had to do with sewing. While on calls, I can pin things together, mark pattern pieces and even hand baste stuff together. Seriously though, if I ever won the lottery I would spend all day sewing. After working out, of course. ;-)
Aaaaanyways, the moral of that story was that I cut something out wrong. It ended up kind of working out decently, but I immediately made a second version of this dress and cut it out correctly. See, I learned from my mistake! haha. Its best if I just show you what I did... prepare yourself.
The front...
Oh look, pleats on the left side of the bodice. Cool.
Wait, what the? Why are the skirt pleats on the other side?? Oh yeah, cause I'm a dumb ass.
The back...
See! Its not half bad! And really, it almost looks like some sort of pattern design. If I hadn't told you what I fucked up on, you might not have even noticed. Plus the pleats are not super noticeable anyways. It kind of looks like my dress is just bunched up in odd places. But I don't care, I like it! I did mess up the sleeves a little because I couldn't understand the directions. I had hand basted it during work and it looked odd, but I thought it would look better when I actually put the sleeve on the dress. Nope. So off they came and I moved the pleats to face each other on the inside and it looks a ton better now.
Nope.
Crappy and wrong
Aah... much better.
Aaaaand I made sure that the pattern to the fabric was all facing the same direction throughout the whole dress!!! I usually just cut out a pattern according to how much fabric I have, placing the pieces wherever I can, regardless of the grain of the fabric and how it is supposed to stretch or not stretch. For this one, I made sure that it would face the same way, but I also tried to make sure it was all laid out like its supposed to be. I was really proud of this one. I also did the pattern direction matching on another dress which I am almost done with. More to come on that one, soon.
See the little diamond thingies?
Also, the darts line up which mine almost never do. #perfectionist haha
I really like the back vent in the skirt and the length of the whole thing. The neckline sits nicely and the sleeve length is perfect. I did have a little trouble with the zipper as this is a knit fabric and even though I interfaced the zipper area, it still buckled a little. I topstitched it and it looks better, but its still a little wonky after I have been sitting and I go to stand until I pull the dress down a little and adjust it. No biggie. But for the second one I used another knit, but a thinner, slightly more stretchy one. For this one I did not want to add a zipper at all, so I made sure the way I placed the pattern on the fabric was to my greatest stretch advantage because it was going to be pulled over my head instead of being zipped into. I didn't have to worry about matching the pattern of the fabric because it was kind of a jumbled design which worked out very well.
Its rather pretty
The pleats don't come out well in the pics on this one. But you saw the red one, so you know basically what they should look like.
This dress was a tad shorter because I didn't have quite as much fabric as I did for the red one. The sleeves are also shorter because of the lack of fabric, but not in a bad way. Since this one is thinner, the slightly shorter sleeves kind of go with it for a spring/ early summer dress. It is an option if the day turns out to be a hot forecast.
So yeah, after 2 versions of this dress, I would definitely recommend it! Very easy and fun to make. And it has other versions, like a one sleeved option. I might try that one day.
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