Sunday, April 14, 2013

The Garden Party Dress; a love/hate relationship

First of all, let me tell you that I LOVE this dress! Adore it! I think it is sexy, gorgeous, sofisticated and classic all at the same that. It only depends on what you wear it whit.

I startet off very optimistic whit this dress. I saw the pattern over at Honig Design, Elises blogg, who is allso the talented lady who designed the dress and drafted the pattern herself! WHAT A JOB!
And from the very first moment that I saw it, i knew this was the dress that I had always been looking for!

I startet cutting the peaces, and was VERY thoroughly whit the description, so that I was shure I would`nt miss anything or screw up anywhere. I had desided that this dress was going to be my best work EVER!
Because thats how much I love it....

I had read Elises suggestions on changing the size on the sleeves, so I did. Kind of...
The bodice was finished. It looked great. And then!!! What?! How?!  Shit!!%"##&"
I totally missed where the pattern said that I had to make TWO pieces for the back!
Not ONE on the fold.....
Ok... what to do next. I could either make a new bodice from scratch, or I can continue, only cutting the back in two pieces. Even though I knew that I had lost about 4 cm of fabric at the back, I desided two cut the back in two for input of the zipper. At least then I would get the practice of the pattern, and I would do better on the next dress....

But when I was going to try the dress on, the sleeves was about to strangel my arms, and I was not able to move my upper body. It was to tight over my chest. I even opened the darts in the back and made them smaller to gain a few centimeters where I lost some at the back. But unfortunately it did not help.
The sleeves were to tight over mye arms/shoulders.

So I made a new bodice, from scratch. And this time I remembered to cut the bodice in two pieces!
So far so good. I even made the sleeves after Elises tutorial on how to customize the sleeves.
I gained about 4 centimeters in width I suppose. So now I was optimistic;)

Soooo... after ataching the sleeves, skirt and adjusting and fastening the zipper I was ready to trye it on for the finale. I was suuuuper exited! Unfortunately, the sleeves were still a bit to tight. Enough that it will freak me out while wearing it. But the problem was the opening around the arm, espacially the armpit.
Fortunately, I bought this fabric last week at a fleemarket. I am not shure what material it is, but it is some kind of medium weight, and I have a suspicion that it contains wool. It looks like a suiting fabric. I bought about tree meters for 20 Norwegian Krones, wich is 2,28 British Pounds. Thats nothing!
But this is not my last go on this dress! I have allready more fabric on the way, and now I am thinking of making it whitout arms at all! I think that is a good idea :)

Aaaanyway... here are som pictures of the dress that I have learned to love so mutch, but have a very tense relationship to.



I will post som action pictures at a later time! I promise:)




4 comments:

  1. Hi there! Sorry to hear you had a few wrong turns. While the sleeves are tight the tutorial helps if you measure as you go! In saying that your idea of a sleeveless version also sounds very interesting and would love to see that!
    I love the combination of grey and black lace.. always a favourite :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi! Thanks for stopping by:) The grey and lace is very likeable, I agree:) The next dress I think will be of an easier design, In a somewhat greenish moss-like colour, and yes, maybe whitout sleeves. Then I can trow a cardigan over it and allso use it at the office:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I had a similar problem, but thankfully I had made a muslin first. I then realised my printer had scaled the pattern down to 90%!!! I learned from now on to always check the test square on the pattern.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi! I am pretty shure I remembered to put the scale 100%, at least I allways remember it now. I have to check the pattern to be shure, maybe thats why it all went wrong...

      Delete

I love reading you`re comments!