The Birthday Dress: Part 1

Deciding what to make:

I think it was last year (coincidentally, around April) that I talked about making this BWOF dress in orange and pink.



A year later, I'm going to get cracking. I've traced it out (12 pieces! good grief!) and now I need to add seam allowances and make a muslin.

Why am I making a muslin, you ask? Only because this is rated a 3-dot pattern, and I've never made a 3-dot pattern before. I want to make sure I'm up to the challenge, before ruining the good fabric.

My wearable muslin (despite this excellent post, I can't bring myself to cut and sew without getting something out of it, and good fit doesn't count for me) will be in yellow, with white bands.

Now, off to add seam allowances and cut it out...

Sewing review - Vogue 8386

I'm not sure if this dress caused my biggest sewing slump yet, or if it was inadvertently caught in the middle. All I knew is, all I had to do was sew the hem, and sew the bodice to the skirt (already basted, too) and it took me a month to do, due to vanishing mojo.

That being said, I really like how this dress came out. It is my not-so-dressy alternative to the little black dress. The fabric is from Fabricland - it has been sitting in the stash for almost a year. (Waiting to be made, I always knew, from the day I bought the fabric, that Vogue 8386 was what I was going to use it on.)

This is my first Vogue pattern, and for the most part, things went smoothly. However, two things caused me a bit of grief.

- The instructions tell you to understitch the self-lining on the bodice - but this caused my bodice to stretch out, which I was NOT happy about.
- To get the bodice to fall right, without huge gaping in the front, or flashing the entire city took about a hundred tries basting the damn thing in place. And I'll probably still need a safety pin, or double-sided tape (just like the celebrities!) when I wear it - I'll be too self-conscious otherwise.

Right now, I've plans (damn this social life) Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. I've a nagging feeling I have something going on Tuesday as well, which leaves me no time to sew. Aargh. I do have a project on the go - BWOF 02-2009-108, the boatneck tee, which everyone in the world has made. Also, my birthday's coming up, and like Trena, I want to make a birthday dress. We'll see.

It fell off a cliff...

My sewing mojo, that is. This is the first time since I started sewing that I've completely not felt like sewing, and I'm very perturbed.

Not coincidentally, my social life is busier, although when people I haven't spoken to for a while ask me what's going on with me, my stock answer is Nothing Much. Which is true. So, I'm busy doing a lot, but not anything really meaningful. Again, perturbing.

Friday, I'm trying to keep one of my new year resolutions - to cook one new dish a week. So far, I've really not kept this resolution well, but on Friday, I've invited people over to dinner, and hope that this will spur me to cook something new.

I started work on my first Vogue dress last month, before the sewing mojo fell off a cliff. Maybe I'll finish it this week? Here's to hoping.