Last night, I fixed the July dress and I am actually wearing it to work today with a huge “I made this” smile on my face. All I did was fix the sleeves. I changed them from a short sleeve to a cap sleeve. Most of my clothing has cap sleeves and it just seemed like that was the problem with the July dress. It wasn’t meshing with my style enough. The peter pan collar was super cute, but I kept feeling like the dress was dowdy and unappealing. There’s nothing like a cap sleeve to freshen up a dress.
Look at that smile. I hid my face in the previous picture for this dress, but here I am. 😀
I also added two pleats on the top of the sleeve to make sure the sleeve hugged my arm appropriately and give it a little bit of a puffed appearance. I, like Anne of Green Gables, am a big fan of the puffed sleeve. Of course, not quite as puffy as her version…
The dress looks great with a belt, too. I’m wearing a brown leather belt with it today and a dark purple cardigan. I feel pretty awesome.
The only issue I found walking in was that the placket doesn’t sit completely flat at the bottom of the dress.
Does anyone have any idea how to fix that?
Now I love the dress. I’m not sure I would use the pattern again, though.
Mostly because I just bought 12 new patterns. McCall’s is having a $1.99 sale until Thursday. Butterick is as well. Vogue is having a $4.99 sale. Basically, now is the time to buy patterns on their site.
I bought 1 Vogue pattern, 4 Butterick patterns, and 7 McCall’s patterns.
5 of the patterns are costumes. M6139 has a little bit of a Marie Antoinette look to it. B5935 could very well not be a costume pattern. It’s a gorgeous corset. The thing that I really love about the pattern is that it has straps on it and various styles of straps. I’ve got to find a place to buy corset boning, though. B3906 is a cheeky little bar wench costume. Corset top with a ruffled dress underneath and an overskirt that shows the underskirt peaking through. I’m going to have fun with that one. M6819 is a really cool female knight costume. I’m in love with it. B6630 are Regency dresses. I’ve always wanted a costume like this. Historical costumes are too cool. Costumes in general are too cool. I’m working on creating my costume closet. I want to get at least one costume done for Halloween. That will likely be my October dress.
I got a few coat patterns: B5685, V8346, and M6657. This tweed may be mine sooooon:
Peasant top pattern: M5050.
Two dress patterns: M6741 and M6504.
Jean Pattern: M5894.
All in all, 12 patterns for around $45 is pretty amazing in my humble opinion. I think perhaps I will not need to buy patterns for a really, really long time. Or rather, I think I should not buy patterns for a really, really long time considering my already large stash of patterns…
I started the other shirt dress last night. If it goes as quickly as the first, I will have two August dresses. I also want to cut out the pattern for the September dress. I also have a deadline for another chapter for my dissertation on September 15 and my monthly Star Trek variety show, Holodeck Follies, that I host is on September 4. Busy, busy, busy.
Andie Wells Studio 
Look at that smile! I'm so happy that you like your dress now. It's really pretty. Maybe you could try tacking the pleat down at the hem?
The puffed sleeves gif made me giggle-snort.
And where did you find that tweed? I wants it. I needs it. I promise I won't take very much. I just want enough for a cape.
It actually is tacked down at the hem. I might need to look into a thin line of fusible webbing.
The tweed is at Fashion by Designer (I think this is the name). It's at Queen and Augusta on the northeast side. It's a basement store. It is a gorgeous tweed and it was really soft.