A New Dress for Easter

I figured I might as well pick back up with the ol' blog during this whole #socialdistancing thing, and fill you all in my sewing lately!  I am taking a bit of a hiatus for a few weeks from sewing, seeing as how I tripped and fell while walking the dog and managed to break my arm (hairline fracture, not that bad, but not ideal, for sure!), but I have plenty to catch up on.  

Starting with my most recent make, I made a dress for Easter.  I like to dress up for Easter, even if I'm not going anywhere, and I currently have blue hair (going stir crazy at home), so decided to take my color matching to an extreme level and break out a treasured bright blue silk I brought back from Thailand five years ago. 

I drew up what I had in my head (oooh, that's another new thing - I took a fashion illustration class!), and used that as my starting point.

The Grainline Studio Willow Tank Dress is basically a sleeveless block for me at this point, as I have the fit just right and the dart adjusted to the right spot.  I started with that, and then took in the shoulders to be a bit more of a racerback fit, adding a keyhole, and adding a subtle curve up to the center.

Another fun new thing that I should probably write a separate post about is my new foamy Laura!  She's not quite done, but my husband made a custom dress form for me, which is super helpful in figuring out pattern adjustments.

I got nervous when it came time to cut into my silk, so figured I would do a wearable muslin shirt version.  I'm glad I did, because I screwed up the keyhole (it didn't actually close because I forgot about silly things like seam allowances), and messed up the burrito method of lining it, so I sacrificed this one entirely.  I did test out a v-neck instead though, and really liked it.  I also was able to determine that the ruffle was a bit intense, which was good, because I didn't have enough of the silk to do that dramatic of a ruffle!

I managed to keep my scraps to a pretty impressive minimum!

I french-seamed the whole thing, and added in-seam pockets.  I even made sure to attach the pockets all the way across the top to the bodice seam to keep them from dragging down the light-weight fabric.  The bodice is fully-lined using the burrito method (keeping all the seams enclosed), and I had stitched the lining down on the inside to keep everything clean.

I neglected to take a photo at this stage, but I wasn't happy once I was basically finished.  French-seaming the pockets caused it to hang a little weirdly, and it was giving me maternity vibes a bit too much for my taste.  I was going for loose and easy, not trying to hide a pregnancy!  Crowd-sourcing suggestions on IG led me to add in a waist tie, which cinched everything in and looked good!  It does make me look slightly like a child, but overall I'm pretty happy with it.

   

I've been on vacation the past week doing yard work, and happened to have a spare mulch pile to play around on!