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Tuesday, March 8, 2011

My Mood Dress- No, Not Mod, Mood

A fellow Sew Retro blogger posted recently about her lovely dress sewed from the Infinite Dress by Lydia Sylvestry (McCall's 5360). When I first saw the pattern she was preparing to cut out in her photos, I loved the idea and began hunting for a similar pattern. Well, the Infinite Dress pattern is for sale here, but it is $50, and that is out of my pattern budget. So, I looked around at some other versions, and I decided to try my hand at making my own. I have a few kinks to work out the next time around, but overall it was a great success.


What makes mine a little different from many of the patterns that I saw is that it has a slim skirt, which I prefer. I will make it as a micro mini for sure. Another great part about this design is that I used a 3 yard length of fabric, but I had a very large piece left over. Maybe I should make Baby A a "Mommy and Me" version ;) I'm calling it a "mood dress" because you can change it to suit the mood- flirty, sexy, classy, elegant- believe it or not, there are ways of wrapping it that give a very modest look. I spent half the day trying to tie it in different ways. Too fun! This is my favorite so far:
Forgive the extreme close up :) This style reminds me of some gorgeous shelf bust designs

I will be tweaking this dress pattern with a wider band at the waist and some basic finishing that I left off on my prototype. I'm selling all of my patterns because I am only wearing these dresses from now on. Okay, joking! I'm sure I'll get tired of them eventually, but until then....

9 comments:

  1. It looks great - well done!! It is so great you drafted it yourself! I'd love to see it in a solid too - any plans for one?

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  2. Thanks Rachel! Yes, I will definitely be making a solid color dress, and I realized too that the skirt doesn't need stretch, so I think I will also try one with a woven fabric on the skirt and a knit top. Oh, heck. I will probably make several more. This flower print stuff was in my stash- $1 @ the thrift store, which is the perfect price for mock up material. I actually ended up liking it though!

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  3. Fantastic! You got a versatile dress, sexy, friendly and fun. Great, great job!

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  4. Abi, this is fab. Superclever. It would look really amazing with a stretch pencil skirt that stops below the knee "a la Marilyn Monroe" as another variation. But this is just brilliant as it is. So good.
    Px

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  5. Thank you both, Rosy and Portia!
    Portia, I agree on the pencil skirt idea. I did intend for this one to be longer, but I made the waistband too short, and I had to hike it up to keep my bits under wraps :) Today I set about fixing it, so I picked it apart, made a new longer waistband, and fixed the gathers to fall only over the hips on both sides (it was puffing in the rear). It looks much better now and is more comfortable to wear. I'll post some more photos of the improved version soon.
    Thanks again- you guys are so wonderfully supportive. :)

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  6. Awesome dress! Cant wait to see the revisions.

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  7. Good job pattern making. Is that a woven? It almost looks like a stretch jersey like a Diane Von Furstenburg

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  8. Thanks kirbielee and Justine.
    Justine, it is a knit fabric, but it really only has two way stretch. I think a four way stretch fabric will work even better. I know the fabric you mean- I actually have a silk knit Diane Von Furstenburg wrap in a crazy floral pattern. It was given to me with the tags still on it by a lady I used to clean for in my early 20s! I scored that day! :)

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