Friday 18 April 2014

A Girl For All Seasons - Sew Dolly Clackett take 2!

My second #SewDollyClackett dress! I mentioned in my first post that I had originally bought the lovely synchronised swimmers fabric with plans on making an Anna dress, but I quickly decided that it wouldn't feel right to make an exact replica of one of Rosin's dresses, so I decided to make up the Anna in the floral fabric and use the swimmers fabric to make a Cambie - another one of Rosin's favourite patterns (or it was anyway).

I first made the Sewaholic Cambie as a practice for my Wedding Reception Dress, and then for the actual dress. However, as I mentioned in those posts, I made a very silly mistake and read the finished garment measurements rather than the size measurements - so I cut my pattern pieces are the wrong size! The main issue is around the waist, which was far too tight in the floral Cambie, so for this version I added a cm to each bodice piece as well as the waistband. 
Due to the way you assemble the Cambie, it's actually quite hard to tell fit until towards the end and when I first pulled up my zip I was dismayed to discover that the extra cms hadn't seemed to make much difference. As a last resort I trimmed down the seam allowances on the waistband and waistband lining as much as I possibly could - and was relieved to discover that that made a MASSIVE difference - phew!!
The other change I made was to try out the straight neckline variation (tutorial here - it's pretty simple!). I have always loved the look of the straight neck and thought that the dress would probably have enough going on with all the swimmers without a sweetheart neckline as well. I really love the way the straight neckline looks, but unfortunately it gapes a bit, which I'm disappointed with. I also seem to have decapitated a few swimmers, which, when I was cutting out the pattern pieces, I thought I wouldn't do - whoops!
Speaking of pattern placement - check out that centre back!!! I am just slightly more than chuffed with how well it lined up! You can see a few finger tips peeking out which actually wouldn't have happened if I had have aligned the zip up as it should have been. However I was getting worried about the fit and placed the zip as close to the edge of the fabric as I could (which I'm glad about now!!!). When I first bought this fabric, I didn't think for one second that pattern placement would be an issue, but when it came to cutting out I realised that the swimmers are in both horizontal and vertical lines - eek…it's essentially a plaid! lol. I spent quite a bit of time ensuring the ladies lined up properly, and thankfully it turned out pretty well (for the most part!).
In honour of Rosin's original Syncronised Swimmers make, I am calling this dress the Girl For All Seasons Dress and I'm not even going to pretend that I wasn't a big Grease 2 fan when I was little!!!
The second homage to Rosin are of course the spectacularly sparkly numbers on my feet, as we all know that Rosin has a wee bit of a soft spot for fabulous shoes (I want ALL of her shoes!!!):
I am really pleased with this dress and can't wait to wear it. I was a little nervous showing the dress to my husband as it's a little more out there (fabric wise) than my usual makes, but I was surprised to find that the husband loves it - in fact I think it might be his favourite make so far! So a massive thank you to  Sarah and Clare for thinking up this fun contest and of course to Rosin herself for her fab sewing style which has given me an excuse to sew outside my comfort zone!
Now let's have one last look at those shoes shall we…

Related Posts with Thumbnails