A Greenish-Blue Dress for the Wedding

I hope you all had a good weekend. It was warm and lovely and we spent much time outside revelling in the sun and the wind and walking barefooted upon the greening grass. Well, Anne did not much care for the greening grass, at least touching it with her feet.

In fact, she did not really care to have any physical contact with the natural world but consented to gloomily tolerate it from the safety of my arms.

I hope we can remedy that over the summer. A child of mine who does not like to be outside?

I was also able to work on the dress for the wedding and although I didn't quite finish it I do not have much more work to do to it before it is wearable. So, here is the fabric; a lightweight knit. Probably something nasty like polyester. But it was cheap.

I printed out the Tanit-Isis pattern, carefully taped the pieces together and then tried to determine which size to cut. Based my measurements, I should have cut a size M or L. But since the elastic shirring does not take up *that* much fabric I decided to cut a size XS for the width of the dress, but a size M for the shoulders and the kimono sleeves. It seemed to work out perfectly.

Of course, sewing the dress did not work out quite perfectly. I tried to fully line the dress with lightweight white fabric but it made the whole thing heavy and bulky so I had to rip the dress apart and take out the lining. I then resewed it but the machine kept skipping stitches if the seams were even slighly bulky - like the shoulder seams. So I had to do those by hand and then bound the seams by hand. I sewed the flat seams with a zig zag stitch and since the fabric wanted to stretch as I sewed it I have to go back and resew a seam for a few inches near the bottom of the skirt on one side as it looks puckery at the moment.

The part that *did* go smoothly was the elastic shirring. It was *so* easy and shirred up the dress to exactly the right size. I deviated from the original pattern in 2 ways. 1: I flared the skirt so it took up the whole width of the 60" wide fabric instead of cutting more narrowly as per the pattern. 2: I added tabs at the shoulder to pull the neckline into a sweetheart shape in the front. This is much more flattering for me since my bust size made the draped shoulders look rather ridiculous and out of proportion. I didn't add tabs to the back neckline, but I may.

I also added a long self fabric sash. It helps extend the look of the waist.

I really like how it looks although I have to admit it sort of reminds me of vintage night-wear. It has passed the approval of both my sisters though, one who is very modern in her sense of fashion and the other who is very conservative and painfully embarrassed by anything that is "revealing". Come to think about it, this dress is actually very 1980's. I have pictures of my mom and her friends at her wedding back in 1985 and pictures of my mom from her highschool years and many of the dresses had a similar feel. I also have a pattern from the 1980's that has a very similar style. So, who knows? It is what it is. But it's me.

I do wish my waist was smaller as this style makes it look huge but maybe I can make a girdle or something this week to wear underneath it and to help smooth things out.

I still need to find shoes to wear with it. And jewelry. I think I'll wear the green dress for the rehearsal dinner Friday night. So it wasn't a waste of money to get it.

A few more days! I'm so excited. I hope I don't cry at the wedding but I think I will. It's hard to believe my little brother is all grown up!

Love,
Sarah