Rawr! Jungle January Snakerific Violet Dress

Wait, snakes don’t rawr….uh…..

Ssssssss………..

Um……… *awkward*

I really love this dress. Not only is it the first project I made with my new serger, Rochester (I posted the other one out of order of making things), but it’s also a fabulous dress. This is a Bluegingerdoll Violet dress. You might recognize the red fabric from my recent Bronte top (which I can’t stop wearing and am working on making 500 more). I picked up the funky snake print jersey from the thrift store. I thought this snake print was perfect for Pretty Grievance’s Jungle January. :)There was also another snake print stretch material, but it wasn’t as good of quality. I still bought it, of course. I can’t say no to fabric. It might appear on the blog one day, but I am sticking to my plans for the next block of time, because I have to stay focused and get that wedding dress done, too. 🙂

Oh and those gloves were made for a costume long ago. Wolf gloves with claws!

Back to the dress, because I digress…

I made a straight size 24 with no alterations for fit whatsoever and am extremely pleased with the fit. BDG drafts for a D cup so I knew that it could handle a great deal of boob, of which I have. I am more than a D cup, but hey….no one in the pattern drafting world thinks beyond a D and certainly won’t draft for my HH. D cup drafting often works okay for me, especially with stretchy material patterns. The only thing that is perhaps an issue with being an HH in a D cup dress is how low the V-neck goes. I think I will be raising the neckline in future versions, which honestly isn’t an issue at all.

Construction of the dress went really well. Rochester wasn’t cranky at all. There are some parts I used Jane Eyre’s delicate touch on rather than Rochester’s cutting speed. The pattern has you put in clear elastic in the shoulders and in the waist line. I used Jane for those steps, as well as the neckline, but elsewhere I used Rochester.

I did change the way the dress is constructed, because it didn’t make sense to me. The instructions have you sew the sleeves in the flat. Rather than sewing the sleeves together, you leave them flat and then sew them into the armscye, which is also flat. Basically, you sew the front and back bodice at the shoulders and then put the sleeves in and sew up the sides and in the same line sew up the sleeves. Gillian has a better tutorial on this, which explains things far better than I can. Basically, this method is great for knits, which have a tendency to slip when sleeves are set in the round. I use this method for most of my sleeve setting. Back to the pattern. The instructions have you do the sleeves in the flat and then you sew up the bodice/sleeves, then you sew the skirt pieces together, and install the bodice to the skirt in the round. Well, being me, I wanted to do it a better and faster way. Instead, I sewed the sleeves in the flat, then sewed the bodice front to the skirt front and the bodice back to the skirt back, and then sewed the entire side seams from skirt bottom to sleeve end and it came out perfectly. The only thing you have to do because you are changing up the method is to slightly stretch the bodice waist to fit the skirt. It’s very little stretching and makes for a better fitted waistband area in my opinion.

The other thing I did extra was add in pockets, because I do that in almost everything I make. I have a standard pocket pattern I use. I think it’s from the Colette’s Moneta, but enlarged for smart phone usage. I’ve been using it for over a year now so I can’t quite remember where I got it, but I know I enlarged it, because phones.

The pockets went in okay….I used my serger. There were some issues turning for the pockets. Jane Eyre stepped in for the bottom of the pocket where it meets the skirt seam, luckily. Rochester was just too clunky for that bit.

I had major issues with the neckband, but I’m not super skilled at v-necks for knits. They are slightly tricky. I also think I cut mine too long based on the stretch in my red material, because it’s a little loose, especially at the back. Next time, I will account for that or use rib knit. I find rib knit is easier to install for neckbands anyway. At least I found that for my Jenna cardis.

The whole dress was cut and sewn in a few hours on Thursday night last week.

I’ve sewn a ton this year (7 things!) and it’s only the end of January. It’s crazy to me how productive I am being! I have one more to share with you tomorrow and then I will slow down for a bit. I’ve got a wedding dress muslin to focus on next week. I might have other stuff sewn next week, but I want to start looking for material for the dress so that means the muslin has to be perfect before I start thinking about material. I also need to know how much I need.

TL:DR Review

• Pattern: Bluegingerdoll Violet Dress
• Pros: Great opportunity for colour blocking and lovely lines. Definitely a more interesting take on the skater-style dress.
• Cons: Barely any. A technical thing about PDFs: the instructions print off wonky for them and they are pretty hard to read. I’m not a fan of the style of BGD’s PDF instructions, but the PDFs go together really well. I don’t quite understand why the whole dress isn’t sewn in the flat rather than the instructions directions to sew the skirt and then sew the bodice and then sew them together. Since the elastic is already on the dress, it seems a lot easier to sew the front skirt to the bodice front and the back skirt to the bodice back, sew the sleeves in the flat, and then sew up the sides from the skirt along the bodice and then end with the sleeves. Way easier method.
• Make again?: Absolutely! I’m in love.
• Rating:  5/5 stars

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