Vogue 8972 for my Momma

It is super hard to find cute dresses out there people. That's how I got guilted into making this dress for my mother. Last September my parents had a wedding to go to. She was looking for a dress for over a month and couldn't find anything. We live 15 minutes from three different malls. She looked in Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, Macy's, like everywhere. She was getting so desperate she was trying on $500 dresses just to see! There are no dresses out there. Ok, the dresses that are out there are either navy, which doesn't look good on her, looks like a Real Housewife dress or are totally frumpy. So finally I said "UGH, fine I guess I have to make you a dress".  Aren't I just the sweetest?

We choose this fabric Rayon asian inspired fabric from Fabricland in NJ. They even had the perfect crinkley silk chiffon print for a luxurious wrap to match. After searching in the pattern books for a while we finally settled on Vogue 8972. It is a simple shape, I like how it has the different cup sizes, so it would be easy to fit. 

I'm so used to fitting myself it's weird doing it to someone else. I cut out the C cup bodice, and made her a muslin. After a little tweaking, the dress came together quickly. It's fully lined in rayon bemberg, and all the seams are topstitched. I used my new edgestitch foot to get the seams perfect. 

The wrap is a yard and a half of fabric, and I just used the narrow hem foot all the way around to finish it. 

She had another wedding to go to this past weekend so I finally got a chance to take her picture. The fabric has a sheen to it so it seems lumpy in places, but I promise the fit is perfect. There are a lot of seams in this dress, and they intercept at the hips, so I had to go back and trim some more before she wore it again and everything lays flat now.  Well I think she looks very glamorous, and she feels good in it too! Don't get used to it Mom, it's back to selfish sewing for me!

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DKNY Vogue 1448

Woah summer has just flown by. I missed the whole month of August on here! Well I've still been sewing, just haven't got a chance to photograph anything. 

So I'm back with something a little crazy. I got this BRIGHT rayon from Fabricland, it was only 8.99 a yard. I scooped it up as soon as it came into the store, that's the benefit of working in a fabric store. I rarely pick out fabric with no plan, so I was flipping through the vogue book for ideas and I saw 1448, which was something a little different for me. Of course my fabric choice would turn it into a Carmen Miranda style dress. 

                       

                           

I made a muslin of the bodice, and obviously I needed to do an FBA. But uh oh there is no dart. I could have added a dart, but I wanted it to look like the original. All the cool kids can go around with no darts, so that's what I wanted to do! I cut and slashed and added a third pleat to accommodate the excess. Now I can be cool with no darts. The only other thing it needed was a little tack to keep the wrap together. 

The bodice is lined, I couldn't find a color that was right for the yellow so I went with white. My go-to lining is Robert Kaufman Savannah. Omg its the lightest softest cotton, and perfect for lining. It's only like 6.99 a yard or something. 

The skirt is the most fun. It is three layers of skirt on the front and the back, all with a narrow hem. I am very thankful for the Bernina narrow hem foot, which I finally mastered. It has these pockets in the front, which don't even fit a phone, so they are kind useless. 

PLEASE NOTE: I found a mistake in the pattern, The front peplum piece 6 should say cut 2 not cut 1. GRRR. I didn't figure that out until I was piecing the skirt together. AND I WAS OUT OF FABRIC. If I didn't have to go to work that day, and knew we had more of the fabric, I would have been in trouble. (I have emailed Vogue about the mistake and they said they are fixing it in future patterns.) 

It was fun to make something a little more complicated than the average dress. It's a fun dress to go out to dinner in, and I wore it a lot on my trip to Italy this summer. 

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