The Story Girl

A Tale of Two Dresses

After much ado, I present the navy eyelet dress I talked so much about (and included on my June to-do list but made at the end of July):

Sorry it’s kind of wrinkly, I just found it rolled in a ball waiting for laundry. It is very different from my original drawing, and happened into this simple form due to not actually sewing this until the week before I left for vacation. It has princess seams and a very full skirt.

There are two layers to the skirt, one with an eyelet band sewn to it to lengthen the dress. I did that out of necessity. The selvage on the eyelet was 4″ of batiste which made it impossible for me to get the right length out of my skirt pattern.

The bodice is lined with navy stretch cotton, cut 1/4″ smaller than the original pattern. I need to add a waist stay to this dress because the skirt is very heavy. I had to do a lot of lifting during the few hours I wore this.

Warning to all who want to sew with eyelet: IT WILL STRETCH. Once you cut the eyelet, those half-holes open up and stretching happens with lots of handling. I had to do a huge amount of snipping and taking in once I constructed the bodice because of this. I took in about 4″ in the back to make it fit again. Yikes!

This olive green dress is another of my patterns. I made this same dress as a nightgown.

I found this buttery batiste (alliteration!) at Mill End on Friday and made the dress on Saturday. Wow. That’s probably my fastest turn around yet. I made it to wear to Ten Tiny Dances. I wore it with black tights and caramel boots and my long gold Abigail Percy necklace.

This picture is the truest representation of the color. ‘Helmut Lang’ was written on the bolt… perhaps this is designer fabric? It sure feels wonderful.

I used some light blue silk bias binding for the hem. This is the same method I used on the navy dress. It’s nice and quick. The bodice is fully lined but I didn’t line the skirt portion, deciding I could just wear a slip under it. Right now I’m not sure if I want to keep the elastic or make a tie belt for it. Thoughts?

Comments (4)