Friday, November 28, 2014

A Dress I Love

I love this dress pattern, Silhouette 4014. So far, it's the first wrap style dress that fits well enough to wear.


The dress is made from 2  jersey panels. I'm not sure which I like the most: the soft jersey or the gorgeous floral designs. At cutout time, I was planning to copy the dress that Peggy Sagers (from Silhouette Patterns) showed on one of her webcasts. The only part that I copied exactly was the top back. From there, it was a "creative" cutting of the fabric that I had left.  I needed another panel to do an exact copy and the fabric was sold out. SURPRISE!! I probably didn't have 1/8 yd of scrap pieces. Anyway, I am happy with the results.

Two days have gone since I started this post. Hubbie came home with groceries so I had to stop writing. All those goodies had to be put in their proper places. Then, the laundry was dry so there was more to put up. Then, the holiday prep needed to start and then.... I imagine you know what I mean. It's so cold here that I feel foolish writing about a summer dress. The yard looks a lot different from the pictures, also. Winter has arrived in Florida. My daughter in PA would call our 40 degree temperature a heat wave.

I'll stop rambling and get to the details of this dress.



There is an angle wrap at the bottom of the skirt which is slimming. Believe me, I need all  the help that I can get.



The back facing is so long that I didn't have my usual problems with facing - uncomfortable and flipping up even with understitching.


I didn't make any adjustments to the pattern (rare for me) other than shortening it by 4 inches.
Here are some more pictures of the panel placement:



For the most part, the sewing was easy. It was a bit tedious attaching the back facing to the wrapped side seams. It wasn't hard, just took a little time.  I did have frog stitch (rip) the skirt because I ended up putting the side seams in the back. Next time I make this, I will mark the skirt sections so that won't happen again! If you look closely, you can see some ripples in some of the seams. I was sewing with one and a half arms since I didn't have full use of my broken arm. Believe me, it takes two arms to sew a proper seam on a knit. Because of the sewing, I was hesitant to wear it. I was sure everyone was looking at the seams. Well, not really but I knew the problem was there. DH likes the dress a lot and I got lots of compliments wearing it.

I have other projects completed and not photographed yet. Hopefully, I will get that done before summer is here. I almost have full range of motion in my right arm so that is no excuse now. I even did a strength video this morning for the first time and the 3 lb. weights felt too light. We'll see how it feels tomorrow. Tomorrow is house cleaning day with my boys and family coming for their second Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. Now, I'm off to cut out the red silk charmeuse shirt that I want to wear for the holidays.

Happy Sewing!!