The 2011 Birthday Dress - Part 2

Of course, I went out last night.

In my defense, it was a lovely day. It was 20 degrees and windy. The air was crisp, and I decided I *must* leave my cave of an apartment and go for a walk. Walking in Toronto is always interesting, there's stores that provide good sewing inspiration, and good cooking inspiration too. (Which I need pretty desperately, I haven't entered my kitchen for a month and a half.)

There's no good reason this walk turned into a 'call a friend and meet for a couple of pints' night - but it did, of course - I had a groupon to use that was going to expire soon, and I hate to let them go unused.

So, I got back home at 11.00pm.

I'm so, so glad I got the fabric all cut out. I like sewing, I hate cutting. I didn't have many seams to sew to get the dress to a try-on stage, so I got to work and got going. At this point, the only things left to do on the dress are (1) to hand-tack the neck facings to the shoulder seam, (2) to finish the armhole seams and (3) to decide what length I want the dress, and hem it.

That's just a couple of hours of work, yay.

Good news - I *love* this dress. It is (exactly as Carolyn said) sexy in an incredibly understated way. I was afraid I'd have to wear Spanx under it, but no - it skims rather than clings (an advantage when you actually make your own pattern size, instead of the optimistic lower size.)

I'll see if I can get photos up soon! On Saturday, I'm going to be too busy partying to actually worry about things like photos for the blog.

Incidentally, this is an incredibly easy pattern to sew, I have no idea what the 2.5 dot rating is all about, unless it is to do with the arm flaps (which I'm leaving out) or with the incredible amount of cutting. I agree with the cutting, but once you are past that bit, really simple!

(Or could it be that in the last 4-5 years of sewing, I've secretly been advancing my skills, and am now ready to try a 2.5 dot pattern? I don't really think that's the case though - must experiment.)

The 2011 Birthday Dress - Part 1

There are a few bloggers (Trena and Melissa come to mind immediately, but I'm sure they aren't the only ones) who always make themselves something fabulous for their birthday. I've wanted to copy this idea for a few years. A couple of years ago, I failed miserably at making this BWOF dress. Last year, I thought of it, but just didn't get around to it. But this year? This year *will* be the year, dear Readers. A birthday dress *will* be made this year.

The dress needs to be ready by Saturday evening, since that's the big birthday drinking day (my actual birthday is on a week day, but a majority of my friends are incredibly lame about going out on weeknights, so the weekend it will be.)

Originally, I wanted to knock off the Lanvin dress that Helen Mirren is wearing here. I even went out to Toronto's Fashion District and bought some gorgeous blue knit fabric. But then, I started wondering - would this dress flatter me? Did I have enough time to make this dress, since I'd have to franken-pattern it? And so, I mentally went to Plan B.

Plan B is BWOF 09-2010-122.


I cut everything out last night, and constructed some of the skirt. Hopefully, tonight, I'll be able to finish it off. I'm going out Tuesday, Thursday and Friday evenings, so I really only have 2 evenings to get this done.