Me-Made-May - the third

The moment I saw this fabric I knew what I wanted to do with it.

I wanted to make a vintage inspired sun dress.  So, I grabbed up 5 yards of it and brought it home.

My original inspiration was this

And the V&A Golden Age of Couture website even had a free pattern to make it!  Unfortunately, I found out quickly that it was no where near my size.  (UK size 14 anyone?) so I was faced with re-drafting the pattern.  and I kept putting that off.

But then I was reminded of (by seeing it on the website) Vogue 8789

and I knew I had found my pattern!  I waited for it go on sale, and snapped that puppy up!  In less then a week of it arriving I had fabric spread over the floor as I cut!

Over all it went together easy.  The biggest stress point was making sure I got things lined up right, but even that was easy given the markings on the pattern.  My only issue... you guessed it - bodice length in the front.  When I got the bodice sewn and tried it on, sure enough it was too short in the front! But then I had the inspiration to build a waistband for the dress!  I cut a strip of fabric slightly wider then I would need, sewed it to the bottom of the bodice and then, tried on the skirt and marked where it would attach.. and whalla!  A dress.. that fit!

To give you an idea of the difference we're talking about here...

In the end I got it to work.  and it didn't look 1/2 bad.  In fact, I found I really really liked it!

I tried it on and his reaction wasn't immediate horror.  He said, "wow, that's a lot of flowers"

A little later he mentioned, "Maybe if you had a belt."  (he says that a lot) "You know, something solid colored to break up all the pattern."

And, he was right!  And, amazingly enough the dress came with a pattern for a cummerbund - hooray!

After determining I didn't have the appropriate fabric at home, it was off to the fabric store.  I had originally wanted something in blue, but the blue in the dress turned out to be impossible to match.  Yellow however...

I ended up with a really pretty yellow chiffon and a butter colored lining (from my stash) that seemed as if it was going to be perfect.

Then I looked at the pattern piece for the cummerbund and went - huh?  To prove I'm not crazy, I've included some photographic evidence here.

You see here that this is, indeed the pattern piece for the cummerbund, pattern V8789, sizes 14-22.  And that it says, clearly, "Cut 1"

But, check out the length of the entire pattern piece!  This is an item that is supposed to go AROUND MY WAIST!

The total length is just under 28 1/2" Pattern fail Vogue!

So, that left me to draft my own.  Luckily the piece itself was fairly straight forward and I worked it out in the end. *grin*

And the final result?  Well hubby declared it A-OK.  I got a little worried when we were sitting at breakfast and he was staring at it.  But, then he said, "Wow, you did a really good job getting that little stripe of green along the edge."

That made me really happy because I worked hard to get that right!

At first I was really bummed at how the pattern met in the middle, but then I realized, the angle this was cut at, there was almost no way to match that.  I had thought maybe I could have lined up white space at the front, but I think I would have caught a pedal or leaf even then.

The skirt.. is just a basic drindle but I LOVE!  It's 4 full width panels of my 45" fabric.  I was really worried what that much fabric would do to my silhouette, but the weight of the fabric seems to keep it from over fluffing at the hips and making me look huge!

Pardon my rumpled state - had been wearing it all day.  I left most of the length because -- well, I like my fuller skirts to be long.  Maybe it's because I'm an 80's kid.

So, the theme for today in me-made world was water.  Being that I live on an island - that wasn't much of a challenge for me.  You see ---

That is San Francisco - and I live about .5 a mile from the beach I'm standing on.

I tried getting a good picture of my dress, but... 

My cummerbund road up in the car- and that looked goofie 

Then I made a goofie face

Even tried twirling - not easy to do in the sand

Finally managed something when I combined it with my favorite jean jacket.

By the way, I have to say this dress makes me happy.  I found myself smiling all day while wearing it and that's not something I can say about most of my clothes!

EDIT:

Took a few more pictures today to show what it looks like without a 'belt'  What do you think?  too many flowers?

Yes, this really is my best zip to date!