Vogue 8648: Lace dress

 

 

 

I have a wedding coming up in October so needed a special dress for it (any excuse to sew some frosting!)

I bought this fabric a couple of years ago just after I'd started sewing. I found it in Spotlight and fell in love with it back then.....Well, now I look at it and mostly notice the fact that its a poly knit with the lace overlayed and the stretch runs opposite to how I'd prefer - I feel like the lace is on its side but that's what you get for poly knit from spotlight I guess.

Size wise: its a sz 20 with a 1" FBA, 1" swayback and a forward shoulder of 1". I sewed the underbust seam with only a 1/4" seam allowance, I've adjusted the pattern for in the future with another 3/4" of length to the front only to add a bit more length.

The waistband is pleated, easier than I thought even though I wasted a heap of paper trying to understand how to pleat it and how wide to do the pleats. I am pretty happy with my pleat matching at the sides though!

The bodice is lined, I didn't worry about lining the waistband, it seems quite sturdy because of the pleating.

Added pockets from Simplicity 2588. These are my go to in-seam pockets, I like how they attach into the waistband which keeps them in place.

 

I'm really happy with the bodice fit on this - after a couple more tweaks I think it will be my TNT dress bodice.

Vogue 8648: Skater dress

Another copycat dress from RTW! I've liked this one at citychic and a friend of mine said she wished the black was on the outside to help create a taller/slimmer shape.

Source

Since I had already muslined up this pattern for the Couture dress plus the pattern was very close to the same design lines of the skater dress I decided to use it. I know I had originally done a FBA to the muslin but for some reason it wasn't on my pattern pieces so I didn't do one to this dress...I think the only reason I got away without it was using the ponte knit, but the bust doesn't fit as well as I'd like so next dress I make from this pattern will definitely have one! The underbust seam is about an inch too high and its stopping the waist from sitting properly.



This was a sz22 with about an inch taken out of each side to help it fit. I constructed this a little different than usual, doing the side seams last. I've found with this cheap ponte from Lincraft that it stretches out over time so this way its an easy fix to tighten up the side seams if I need to.


I added pockets!


I like the way the skirt hangs on this dress, I'd like to make it out of a cotton sateen to make the circle skirt stand out a bit more!