Vogue 1395

This project has been bubbling away in the background for a few weeks and I finally finished it off today. I purchased Vogue 1395 pretty much as soon as it was released. The style of this frock, by Rebecca Taylor, is just my style. A little sack like, but with some waist definition and interest.

The fabric I used was a random 'find' from The Remnant Warehouse. I blogged about it here. It's a polyester print by Sydney designers Bec + Bridge, who I don't follow (you can see their dress made with this fabric here. I think mine is better!). I knew when I saw this fabric that this would make a perfect casual summer dress and I wasn't wrong. I think I may wear this on Christmas day.

Many reviews of this pattern noted the excessively large arm holes, which tastefully show off your bra, and I found I had the same problem. To remedy this, I simply took up the shoulders by a little over an inch. Unlike others, this didn't impact the neck line too much and I really like where it sits. This is possible because I am not as tall as others.

The other knock on problem from this change was losing some of the bodice length. To fix this, I sewed the waist seam rather scant and just zig zagged the elastic onto the waist seam allowance rather than making a casing. The length of the bodice is perfect, which I am pleased about because I didn't have any additional fabric to recut it.

I self lined the skirt with the larger white pieces of fabric which bordered the central print. As there wasn't much to cut into after centering the bodice and skirt pieces, I was left to piece together the skirt lining. This isn't ideal, but it works and it saved my going to the fabric store to buy lining.

To give the dress a clean finish, I flat felled some seams and used a mini one needle overlock stitch on my serger, like a rolled hem.

If you live in Sydney, you would know that today was just glorious. Unfortunately, my limited photography skills made my first round of photos positively luminous! You can see the detail in this pic right?

And before I go and try to squeeze in a little more sewing before tackling gift wrapping (ugg!), how wonderful is this fabric?? My friend Rachel gave me this from her stash for Xmas. I love having sewing friends! It's a Liberty silk crepe and it is just divine. I think it would look perfect as another Vogue 1395, I just need to devise a way to lined the ties as this is not a double sided fabric.

Only 3 sleeps to go!!