My fancy Elisalex

Yay, its finished!

I’m so pleased with this dress! It was such a pleasure it make, it fitted really well with only minimal adjustments, and it all came together so quickly, I’m pretty much planning my next one already. Look at the awesome shape of it!

I did shorten the skirt, because I’m only 158cm tall (5’2″ in the old money), and the original skirt length would have nearly reached my ankles! I didn’t just want to cut it off at the right length, as that would have lessened the awesomely dramatic shape of the skirt, so I folded the pattern up in a concertina about 2/3 of the way down the skirt, and then graded the curve of the side seam down to the hem, keeping the original width at the bottom. I have no idea if thats a legit way to do it, but it seems to have worked, though the skirt is a slightly rounder shape, rather than the tulip shape of the pattern piece. I did take a little bit of the curve out of the widest part of the hips, to compensate for the shorter length.

The only other adjustment I made was taking in the bodice at the top of the zip, to stop any gaping. Other than that, the fit was perfect! I’ve decided that I love princess seams, I’ve never made anything with them before. They made fitting the bodice so easy! I’ll definitely use the bodice again, though I might add a different skirt shape. I also used an invisible zip, rather than an exposed one, as I’m aiming for a vaguely 1960’s vintage look. I used Lauren from Lladybird’s invisible zip tutorial, and it went in like a dream! I don’t have an invisible zip foot (I don’t think they existed when my machine was made…) but using the normal zipper foot was fine. I still need to sew a hook and eye at the top of the zip, but I seem to have run out.

The dress is made of a lovely dark green silk dupion. I really wanted something quite heavy, and when I pictured it in my head it was made out of slubby, heavy silk, so I was very pleased to find this! The bodice is lined with navy blue silk bermberg, as I couldn’t find any in green, and it felt so nice that I couldn’t bring myself to use anything artificial.

The downside to this fabric is how much it wrinkles! I ironed it it just before I put it on for these photos, and look at the state of it! It also frayed like nothing on earth, my whole living room is covered in slubs of thick green thread. I pinked all of the pieces before i started to sew them, and some edges had frayed right past the pinking by the time I had finished sewing. It looks like Oscar the Grouch has been shaved over my my sewing machine.

After all my planning, I haven’t actually managed to make the belt or the bows for the shoulders, hopefully I’ll have those for next week. I actually won’t be too upset if the bows never make it into existence, as I think it looks pretty good anyway, but we’ll see how I get on!