Better finished than perfect

Back at the dawn of the history of my 4 over 5 (so, um, five years ago), I thought "wouldn't it be neat if I, having spent some time in Paris and other parts of Europe, didn't have to fly home with all my carefully considered purchases but could sail home across the Atlantic, as they did in the olden days?"  It turns out you can, on the Queen Mary 2. 


Part of the fun of the voyage on a transatlantic liner is that you get to dress up for the occasion.  There are
three formal nights (out of seven) on the QM2.  I love me some dressy occasions, but since my opportunities to be Cinderella at the ball are somewhat limited, I don't have a lot of appropriate outfits.  I have a long black skirt and different tops, but to be honest, I didn't want to wear that skirt for three nights.  I decided I had to make a Dress.


I found this Vogue pattern and fell in love with it.  Yes, it's supposed to be a bridal gown, but I made the version without the train.  I bought this fabric in New York last fall. I love this silk charmeuse fabric -- it's very "touch me, feel me" -- and the colour makes my skin look creamy. I didn't want to cut it up and was contemplating just wrapping it around me and going to dinner. I think Cunard would frown on that. Plus, it would be hard to dance in.

I was hoping to finish it and wear it to the Constance Margaret Ball, but due to its demise I decided to debut the Dress at the Dovercourt Christmas dance. Since I had a whole month to work on the Dress, it only stands to reason that I left it until the last two days. The pattern looks really simple, but it's quite tricky because the fabric is cut on the bias. Those curves over the hips were especially difficult. It didn't help that I thought my sewing machine had broken halfway through. (Aged P to the rescue! Try rethreading the machine. It's sewing's version of rebooting.)

Because I started so late, I didn't do fit checks along the way and didn't have time to hem. Hemming takes forever, so I cut off what I thought would leave a generous amount for proper hemming later and pinned it up. I put the Dress on. It was not good. It looked fine on the dress form, but it looked dumpy on me. Some of the seams rippled or even poufed and the bodice went straight up and down instead of curving in. I'd hacked off too much of the dress at the front (for heels) and not evenly. It was a disaster.

Then I took a deep breath and looked again. It wasn't so bad. It could be fixed. It could even be worn that night; I threw a sweater on to cover the worst bits. The silk was much admired. I heard someone say my skin looked lovely. The Dress was a qualified success.

Fast-forward to today. Fixing the ripply/pouffy and waist seams was a pain because they were double-stitched. I had to take in the zipper near the top (and there are still issues with it). One of the shoulder straps was too loose and needed to be taken in at the waist as well. The most exciting thing is that I've finally hemmed it. It's still not perfect, but as Aged P said, "better finished than perfect." I also have a second opportunity to wear the Dress in London!

So here it is:

Because of the thirties styling of the Dress, I plan to wear my hair either in a chignon or with a Veronica Lake wave, with silk flowers. I decided to make my own flower pins, since I wanted to match the Dress. They turned out really well, and I'm quite pleased with myself. I got the idea for how to do it from here.

Here they are :

A short tutorial (mouse over the pictures for notes):

1. You need

2. Making the pattern

3. Tracing and cutting

4. Applying Fray Block

5. What you need for each flower

6. Assembly

7. Attaching to bobby pin

8. Ta-da!

I'll get better pictures when I'm actually wearing the Dress and am all gussied up.