Orchids In May

Last Minute Dress

Posted by Stephanie on October 7, 2012 · 6 Comments 

I made this dress to wear to a friend’s wedding last weekend. I love how it turned out but for a while there it was a bit touch & go. To begin with it was last minute decision to make a dress. I got back from about 5-6 weeks of overseas travel (some for work, some for pleasure) & realised I had nothing (that I wanted) to wear. So the Sunday night before the wedding I decided to make a dress.

I’d also just seen this vintage Vogue pattern on Sew Retro’s vintage pattern Pinterest board & really wanted something similar. So on Sunday night I started drafting a pattern.

My original aim was to sew a little bit each night & have a finished dress by the end of the week. Monday night was off to a good start – I cut out the dress & put in all the darts. But it was pretty much all downhill from there. Tuesday I worked late. Wednesday we had dinner with friends & then I had a phone conference. Thursday brought more dinner with friends & a trip to ACMI’s Game Masters Exhibition (awesome by the way). Friday was dinner & drinks to celebrate a friend’s 30th. Before I knew it, it was Saturday & the only thing I’d done was cut out the dress & put the darts in. To make matters worse, I had a hair appointment at 9am & the ceremony was on the other side of the city at 1pm.

I woke up early, had a mammoth coffee followed by a mini sew-a-thon, went to the hairdressers, came home, panicked & then finished off the dress – almost. Technically speaking, I finished about 75-80% of the dress, then finished putting it together with hair ties & safety pins – yes I’m serious.I did end up wearing the dress, I just didn’t get a chance to finish everything as I would normally want it. All the machine sewing was done, but any hand stitching didn’t make it. I didn’t slip stitch the lining to the zipper, didn’t slip stitch closed the lining at the shoulder seams didn’t sew the snap on closures for the pink ribbon at the back & a few other (minor) items.

The fabric I used was from my husband’s late grandmother’s fabric collection. It’s a Thai silk that I think she brought back from Thailand many many years ago. The colour of the fabric is stunning – the photos don’t do it justice, but it was very fragile & so a little tricky to sew with. I ended up using a Hong Kong finish on all of the seams because I was petrified of it just unravelling before my eyes.

I used the dress pattern from Vogue V8146 for the basis of this dress. I’ll post some more information later in the week about how I converted it to make this pattern – it was pretty easy the front pattern piece is unchanged from the Vogue pattern & the rear pattern piece has just been split in two.

I’m really happy with how this dress turned out. I did take some time to finish the dress properly & take some photos. I’m still thinking of making a couple of changes to the pink bow at the back – it looks a little limp at the moment, but that sounds like a job well suited to future Steph.