I love the idea of making my own dresses, for so many reasons. I love being able to choose crazy prints if I want to. I love being able to choose modest patterns for my fun fabrics. I love that I can make things I love to wear, even if they’re not cool or popular enough to be sold in stores. I love that theoretically, I can make them fit just perfectly. I even really enjoy the process of making them. I just haven’t made any (other than my Mrs. Frizzle Halloween costume) since I made dresses for my bridesmaids for my wedding over three years ago.
A couple weeks ago, I finally picked a pattern out of my closet and went to work on making myself a new dress!
I used Simplicity 2444. This is actually my muslin in preparation for some dresses with really fun prints, but since I got the fabric (a lovely kind of shiny 100% cotton) at a garage sale for under $2/yard, it was cheaper than muslin, plus I get to actually wear it!
I love the twirly skirt! I made it up a size smaller than the fit guide on the back of the envelope, and it ended up fitting quite well. I only made a few minor changes. Rather than facing, I ended up fully lining the dress and lining the skirt in a silky lining-type fabric so I can wear it with tights when its colder outside. I also cut the front skirt on the fold instead of as two separate pieces since my fabric was wide enough, so I don’t have a seam down the middle.
I hate that the waist seam doesn’t line up in the back, but not enough to rip it out and fix it. I put it in wrong about 3 times before I finally got it right anyways. I’ll just try harder next time. There’s also an exposed lilac zipper in the back. I love the exposed zipper, but I think I’ll make some adjustments to how I sew up the seam it fits into next time.
My favorite things about these photos though? I still love my mermaid hair (you can read more about how I did that here), and those .
It even matched my nails when I wore it yesterday!
Eddie thinks the sleeves make it look too matronly. I may shorten the sleeves a bit, but I feel like when I make it up in some crazy prints and wear it with that green/blue/purple hair, it’ll be hard too look all that matronly. I’m already most of the way through sewing a second one in this fabric from Lizzy House! I have several other fabrics set aside for dresses as well 🙂
I love sewing, but I can totally understand you – doing bridesmaids dresses can steal your craftiness for a long time! Keep up! And your blue dress looks good 🙂 even if the seams do not line up 🙂
super cool dress! i might already have that pattern in my stash – i keep collecting fabrics, patterns, and notions, but just don’t make time to sew 🙁 i totally agree with your motivation to sew: to create what you love regardless of what’s on the racks at the store.
i’m just starting a book – and by starting i mean i’m still in the chicken scratch stages of developing questions for the interviews. the book is meant to be stories of ladies/girls and the stories that go with their dresses; what was going on in their life at the time of purchase/wearing/sewing the dress, etc. does that make sense?
if you are interested in sharing your story(ies) with me (and hopefully many other folks) just email me.