July dress

I would have posted this sooner, but I’ve been on vacation this week. I finished this on August 1st, but it’s a July dress.

Death to the evil dress!

It’s done and I am done with it.

Problem after problem with the pattern and the fit. It just wasn’t an easy dress to create. I’m glad it’s done. I’m not sure how I feel about it because of how difficult it was to make. I am proud of finishing it, but it destroyed me.

I altered the bodice to fit my shape. I altered the collar because the neckline was enormous. I took out the back pleat, because it made me look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I had to increase the size of the sleeves because they were made for much smaller arms than my plus-size arms. I got rid of the lining. I took about five inches off the hem, because it reached to my ankles and looked off at that length.

I still have to go through and pick out basted stitches and make it look pretty. It’s a nice dress and conservative enough for work. I might need some distance from it.

Have you ever struggled with a pattern and not wanted to wear the dress because of the sour feelings?

In the meantime, I am moving on and creating two shirt dresses.  A kelly green dress and a purple plaid dress (it also has silver thread in it):

The pattern is much simpler than the evil dress. It’s the top right-hand corner pattern. I’m starting with the kelly green fabric. I can easily wear these into the fall with belts and leggings and boots and leg warmers. While I don’t love fall weather, I do love fall fashion.

I love patterns with buttons, because I love shopping for unique buttons. I already have both fabrics cut out, but I ran out of fusible interfacing. I am going to go shopping in the Fashion District here in Toronto for some really unique buttons and more interfacing. I’ll take some pictures and post an entry on the Fashion District.

Toronto’s Fashion District is really wonderful. When I started sewing, my only option was either Walmart (which doesn’t even have a fabric section anymore!) or Fabricville (the east coast Canadian fabric superstore; I was in St. John’s, NL, at the time) and neither had really unique fabrics in them. The Fashion District has tons and I’ve been lucky enough to get some really amazing prices on fabrics. Haggling is easy there. All you have to do is say how it was more money than you wanted to spend and most shop owners will lower the price. At one store, I was given a 25% discount on my entire purchase after haggling down the prices for all fabrics. There’s so much competition there that they are all trying to get your business. Sometimes they also throw in an extra yard here or there. One place gave me a yard and a quarter of mint satin for $3. This store also gave me about five yards of really amazing faux fur for my tribbles for about $30. Some of the faux fur was actually $30 a yard. If you’re ever shopping in Toronto for fabric, you should never believe the first price they tell you. Always try to get them to lower it. More on that later.

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