OK so this is way over due - I made this back in October last year, but I just wanted to catch up with my blogging.
This dress was created in my quest for that ultimate winter dress. Something that's warm comfortable and easy to wear. Did I succeed? Well.... no.... this dress definitely didn't live up to my expectations, plus I made a really stupid sewing mistake which is really annoying when wearing this. I'll see if you can notice it!
I started from the point that I wanted a long dress with long sleeves. I contemplated making another Kielo but decided I wanted something with a fuller skirt. After sketching out a couple of designs I decided to go with a full length shirt dress with a button band right down the front. I used the bodice and waistband that I drafted for this interview dress, added the sleeves from my plaid shirt pattern and used whatever fabric I had left over for the skirt.
The bodice and waistband pieces I fully self lined for extra warmth, since I was running low of fabric and wanted enough for a big skirt I went with a black poly fleecy material to underline the sleeves. I played around with adding a fleece underskirt as well but that was going too far and I ended up taking it out. I will just have to wear it with leggings to keep the bottom half warm.
The bodice ended up being a bit too big so I put an extra seam down the center back through both layers of bodice and waistband which is a bit bulky but the best I could come up with without taking the whole thing apart.
Of course I added pockets into the skirt - I had to piece together lots of little pieces to make them but who is ever going to see.
I played around with a number of different skirt styles pleats vs gathers, small pleats vs large pleats and decided on two pleats in front and two in back lined up with the darts in the bodice.
I finished the dress and tried it on for a day and felt - well - frumpy! everything is just so covered. It needs a deeper neckline - or a shorter skirt, but either would defeat the purpose I was going for.
I've played around with adding a couple of gathers up the front of the skirt which gives the whole dress a bit of a steampunk vibe which I quite like, but the gathers keep coming out in the wash.
So has anyone spotted the mistake? Yep somehow I managed to put the placket in the front on one of my sleeves rather than the back. Still not sure about how I managed that - but oh well. and since the sleeve is underlined it would be an absolute pain to try and fix - I would have to go out and buy more fabric and start the sleeve again - and I'm just not sure I love this enough to do it!
As it is this dress has been sitting on the end of my bed for a couple of months now. I don't want to waste precious wardrobe space on it, but I'm not quite ready to toss it either. I keep thinking maybe I'll chop off the skirt...Maybe one day I'll actually get around to it. In the mean time maybe I should just start using it for what my husband reckons it is - a bathrobe!
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