Cocktail Dress ---Revealed

Here it is in all its glory.  

It looked perfect for the occasion.  I kept it long though a friend thought I should lop off about 6 inches from the skirt.  Perhaps if I had thought about it BEFORE using all that silk, I would have.  But I wasn’t now going to chop off all that silk. 

Plunging neckline

Of course the BF was proud and went around telling people that I made my dress in a week.  I am much more stealth about my sewing; I didn’t really need this broadcast…lol.

But let me tell you about my adventure getting to the party.  BF had to leave early to go set up.  The party was at a restaurant in San Francisco Chinatown.  BF took a taxi from the B&B and ordered me a taxi from the same company.  There I am all gussied up, standing outside waiting for the taxi.  The taxi pulls up, and yes it is from the right taxi company.  BF calls me at the ordered time to make sure it arrived.  I tell him it just came and I am getting in.  I get into the taxi and the taxi driver confirms where I am going and then tells me he won’t take me there.  WHAT??  This should not be a surprise.  This is not a taxi I hailed; it was ordered in advance.  He asks, very nicely mind you, to please get out and get another taxi.  You see, his shift was ending and he did not want to drive the 8 minutes to Chinatown because it would take him in the wrong direction.  WHAT??  Is he serious…yes he was…. very serious.  So out of the taxi I get and call the BF who goes ballistic and calls the taxi company.  About 5 minutes later, the taxi returns…. same driver…he will now take me to the restaurant.  Hello…didn’t you ask me to get out of your taxi?  What is going on?   So I get in the taxi and he takes me towards Chinatown.  When we get to Chinatown, he stops the taxi and asks me to WALK the rest of the way.  He points out the restaurant about 5 blocks away but luckily it had a flag so one could pick it out of all the other buildings.  I am now late for the party, but out of the taxi I get and start walking in my really high heels to the restaurant.

Seriously…this was the WORST TAXI DRIVER I have ever encountered in this country.

Execution of the Plan

I am happy with the dress however it really veered off the plan.

Recall…this is the pattern.

My previous dress made with this pattern.

You just look at this dress
and it wrinkles

I started off thinking this was just going to be as the pattern intended but after cutting out the pattern pieces I decided I wanted a tie for the back.  I knew I was going to back off the piping for this dress and that stayed true to plan.  I also knew that from my prior make, I thought the sleeves were a tad long…just long enough to annoy the crap out of me so those were shortened.  I also wanted to lower the neckline.  Hello cocktail dress…. needs a low neckline.

I constructed the dress with French seams.  I love French seams in theory but they annoy me in execution because it really does mean sewing the dress twice.  I also hand basted the seams first before taking it to the machine so I could stop the slippery charmeuse from slipping and sliding all over the place.  Due to the time crunch I have to admit the basting was NOT pretty but it did its job.

Just the 2 rows of topstitching
and lower on the neck

First bee in the bonnet: I decided I should top stitch with silver metallic thread.  I had some wild idea this would look really cool.  Well, the first row of topstitching along the shoulder seams looked okay.  Sooooo I decided a second row would look better.  It was okay so why not add a third row??  So that’s what I did.  But when I stepped back and looked at the third row, I ….well I have to say I hated it!!  Really hated it and started re-thinking silver topstitching all together.  Out came the third row of topstitching but I just decided to leave the 2 rows remaining and revisit it later.

Notice how high the neck
is in the back.  Also you can kinda
see that there would have been a lot
more topstitching

When trying on the bodice with the lower neckline, I started making changes to the neckline in general.  I thought there was too much fabric in the back of the neck in that it was creeping up my neck.  But time was of the essence so no muslining changes.  When I bound the neckline with bias binding, I made further changes to the shape of the neckline which means that all the silly topstitching has all but disappeared.

Second bee in the bonnet: After piping along the waistline, I decided I needed to bring the silver metallic topstitching down to the waist.  I topstitched above the piping. …and it looked weird so I removed it.  I topstitched under the piping…better but the fabric was sliding and the topstitching was…well…very wavy.  So out it came.

This silly topstitching is eating up the time!!  I had to stop and just finish the puppy so I didn’t go to the party naked!

Building a Plan

First the Pattern

What pattern have I made that I could turn into a cocktail dress?  Running through the memory banks, the pattern that stood out was Butterick 7820 since if you look at the pattern art, it seems like it is supposed to be a late 30’s cocktail dress.  My make was a cotton poly day dress but why not?

Second, the fabric.

It is times like this when I love working downtown.  Off I ran to the fabric district to check my favorite silk store.  After fondling the fabric assessing my options, I decided basic black silk charmeuse was the way to go and $39 later I had my silk and was off to buy thread.

Can you tell this is black?  At first is was just
a black square.  Black is so difficult to
photograph

Better Late Than a No Show

Polka dots on parade dress was finished in a timely manner.  It was worn to the event, very successfully I might add.  I went with a whole 1940’s flavor that I enjoy so much

What I love about this dress is the piping I added.  I think it just ramps up the dress from ordinary to a little special.  I am particularly pleased with the way the piping on the sleeves turned out.  Thanks to the incredible Carolyn for providing a tutorial that took me from huh to wow!

What I do not like about the dress is the material.  It definitely has polyester in it.  I danced for a couple of hours at the event and this material did not breathe!  Ugh and the room where the dancing took place was HOT.  Hey at least it doesn’t wrinkle too badly.

Courtesy of D'Nalof Designs
Yes, it's me.

Whew

Crazy busy week.  Too much going on with work to sew.  This weekend did see some sewing time.

Shoulder detail

The bodice came together like a dream even with the top stitching on the shoulder detail.  I did make a slight FBA but felt with the gathers and because it is a bigger size than I normally, I would probably be alright.  Fingers crossed this holds true.

Polka Dots On Parade

The next dress is going to be out of this white with black polka dot fabric.  This fabric is notable in that it was one of the first pieces of fabric I bought when I started sewing.  It is a cotton poly blend and was one of my $1 a yard finds. 

The dress will be this pattern.

It has a distinctly very late 30’s early 40’s look to it and very reminiscent of this one.

Off to trace the pattern.