November 11, 2015

Where it's all about the surprises

Hello there!
After my last post where I stated I only sew what I had planned to, I thought it was nice to share a new dress which was not planned at all. The purpose is to show that I can change my plans, and to share a cute dress, of course.
It is the Bardot dress, by Simply Sew, attached to Love Sewing Magazine.


The main reason I decided to jump the gun and make myself a new dress is this lovely cotton by Liberty. My Chéri sent me 3 m. as an unexpected birthday present. 
We live far apart but when I opened the parcel and touched the fabric, my heart skipped a beat thinking that he touched and chose this fabric for me. He said that choosing fabric was not so easy as it may look. I hope now he will better understand why I spend hours inside fabric shops.
We were supposed to meet a few days later in Rome, so I immediately prewashed the fabric and made this dress in one day, just to surprise him: when we met, I was wearing it and his jaw dropped!


The main feature of the dress is the wide boat neckline, finished with self bias. It is flattering and sits very nicely.
As usual with Simple Sew patterns, I cut a size 14 at shoulders and bust, graded to size 18 at waist and size 16 at hips, then made a 1,25" FBA. This is now my recipe and it works well.


I chose to make cap sleeves to save fabric and now have one meter left. They are not visible on my dress because of the busy print, but the sleeves are raglan.


I am proud of my pattern matching between bodice and skirt!
For information, I am wearing my petticoat under it, but next spring and summer I am going to wear the dress without it, and with bare legs.


The dress features four inverted pleats at the skirt, two at the front and two at the back. They look wide open, and this is maybe the only minus of the design, for me, because it looks like I am exploding them. Well, this is a quite minor minus, if you allow me.
The general silhouette is very cute and flattering, from the front, from the side and also from the back, which almost never happens to me!


After making the dress and being very happy about it, I regretted that the colours are not quite adequate to autumn for my style, but I have been wearing it with opaque tights and my perfectly matching Miette cardigan, so this dress stays in rotation for a few weeks more. I think the resulting outfit is quite cute.


As a last surprise inside the surprise after the surprise, I made a bow tie with the scraps. 
The pattern was in the April 2015 issue of Love Sewing magazine.
Chéri was delighted with it and we had a lovely (but brief) weekend together!


4 comments:

  1. First of all, I love this dress! The fabric is so pretty, and the neckline/sleeves look lovely on you.

    But also, what a great story behind this one! I think my heart melted a little. :)

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    1. Thank you for your kind words Nicole! I like that this dress has a special meaning for me :)

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  2. Aw, I love this dress and how romantic and lovely that you made it in time for your love to see you.

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    1. Thank you Char, I guess this is one of the perks of sewing my own wardrobe!

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