A Dress in a Week (ish)
My office is hosting a 'Last Night At The Proms' themed social in September which comes with a black tie (optional) dress code and since I've had the Simplicity 8289 pattern sitting in my stash for a few months, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to make myself a new formal dress. Then I remembered that I'm going out for a birthday dinner next week and thought this dress would be lovely to wear for that too; so I decided to try and get this dress made in a week.
I got off to such a great start: cutting out all the pattern pieces and making a mock-up of the bodice from an old bedsheet in the first day. I used my new Olivia Adjustoform dress form to test the fit of the bodice before putting it on myself and happily didn't need to make any alterations.
Cutting out my real fabric was tough - I was using a polycotton satin, poly chiffon, and non-stretch lace for the outer and a lightweight cotton voile for the lining which are all fairly slippery and uncooperative. I ended up cutting out the lace panels for the back twice because the first time they weren't on the right grain.
Every seam was basted together before stitching to try and minimise fabric shifting but even with all the care taken I ended up with wonky piece matching. I also found I'd used a much heavier interfacing than I should have used although the pattern didn't specify a recommended weight so that's something to learn from in the future. The result is a very stiff bodice front that crinkles and doesn't mould to my body.
All in all, I didn't have the best time with this project and I think a large part of that is down to me rushing to get the dress wearable in a week. Even though I did manage to wear it for the birthday meal, I hadn't managed to level the hems on the three layers of circle skirts. By the time I did get around to hemming them, I remembered how much I dislike hemming circle skirts and chiffon so the top layer was lazily sealed by running it over a flame to slightly melt the plastic fibres - one of the only positives about plastic fibre fabrics in my opinion.
The invisible zip is also wonky and doesn't fit correctly as I cut corners which in hind sight was a very daft move considering it was my first time inserting one.
And after all this, by the time the work event came around I'd lost a few kilos of lockdown weight and the dress was suddenly a few inches too big around the bust and waist! I didn't have the patience to adjust a dress that I didn't love the construction of so I ripped out the lovely cotton voile skirt lining to repurpose as a petticoat in future and binned the rest of the project.
At least I got some twirly photos from when I wore it to dinner!