Sew Unravelled: SEWN: Vintage Style Pattern 4616

Tahdah! And so I present to you my first blog project - Vintage Style 4616.

You might remember from my last post I was rhapsodising View 2.

P kindly offered to take some shots of the dress in action. Now, neither of us profess to being great photographers, but we are driven to work harder after snapping some shots - blurry doesn't even begin to describe most of them! And now we know why most people won't photograph in natural light in the height of the day. Youch... bright light, not so great photos. Hey, we'll work on it!

I just adore this dress...

Oh yes, this dress makes me want to kick up my heels!

And what a relative dream to put together. I made it up in some gorgeous cotton poplin from the Vintage Prints range at Spotlight. They've had some pretty great stuff and I've used some other fabrics from the range for various projects - might share them one day.

This dress came together pretty quickly, instructions were easy to follow and the lines of the dress are just lovely. I was worried for a second that it was going to be too short - we all know that look was definitely a 70's one - and I bought no additional fabric to allow me to lengthen the skirt. Eek! I ended up turning a verrrrry small hem.

Note to self: must remind DH not to cut off the bottom of skirt shots in the future!

Now whilst my bust measurement matched the pattern size, it was miles too big. I attempted an initial tissue fitting, rather than making a toile, and it actually looked fine. Woops - when made up in fabric, however, quite a few inches needed to be taken in on the bodice sides and an inch or so on the hips. If I'd realised a little earlier in the construction, I'd have taken out some of the excess on the centre back seam. Oh well, we live and learn.

Only real departure I made from the directions was to omit trim and insert an invisible zip at centre back rather than a regular dress zipper. I did in fact attempt the traditional centred zipper, but for the life of me couldn't resurrect the know-how I am sure is still in that rattly old brain of mine. I remember learning about them in high school textiles and design classes, and I'm sure I was a total wizz at them, but that is over 20 years ago. And with a 55cm/22inch (!!) zip required there is no room for wonky lines of stitches visible down the back of one's dress. So I switched it out for an invisible zip which I far prefer anyway.