Vogue 8028

I sacrificed one of my recently made Tova tops to make this dress.

I originally purchased this fabric from Tessuti in late April . It's deep grape coloured viscose with black and navy checks. It has slight stretch in one direction, which is nice for a little extra comfort. When I got home, I thought I was so clever that I'd managed to find a way to cut a Tova, this one, and Vogue 8028 from the one piece of fabric that I'd purchased. I used every last scrap and the cutting was tricky, but my tight ways won!

Well, until I came to make this dress and realised that I'd accidentally forgotten to cut the collar band, which is kinda essential to making a stand collar.

So, I decided to sacrifice the Tova to make this dress and I'm quite certain I made the right choice!

Despite the bad pattern envelop photo and my bad photos, I think this is a great classic shirt dress pattern.

This was the first time I'd sewn a stand collar and I'm pretty happy with the result. I really made sure I took my time to make sure it was neat and professional looking. I'm sure it would have been even better with a fabric that irons well.

The instructions for this pattern were superb, as you would expect from Vogue patterns and I only got stuck on one small part of the stand collar. I still didn't figure out what they were asking me to sew, but a look over my vintage Readers Digest Complete Guide to Sewing book outlined an alternative way to attach the collar band to the front plackets of the dress.

The only other problem I had  with this pattern, was reducing some of the bulk in the corners and joins of the collar. This fabric was a little thick and unravelled a bit when trimmed, so I had to very carefully work the joins.

I think I'll definitely make another of these and I know there will be many more Tova's in the future.

Pattern review is here.