A finished object

In the aftermath of the Fabric Flea Market, I did muster enough energy to finish a sheath dress which had been in the planning for several years, and in the execution for several weeks.

I had purchased the fabric for this dress a couple of years ago on a flying trip to the Wool House when I was wearing  this jacket:



(I pause here to note that I hate Windows Live Writer.  When I first used it, it was brilliant.  Then I got a notice to update it.  Now I hate it.  I can no longer figure out how to format text around the photos – the previous version worked perfectly.  I think I’m going back to editing using Blogger.)

Back to the regularly scheduled blog.

As I was saying, I was wearing that jacket, which I seem to have made in November, 2007.  I know that because that's when I reviewed it on PatternReview (here).  I was having trouble finding pieces to coordinate with it – the fabric has some dark blue, some light blue, some creamy beige, but putting any of these colours next to it looked strangely wrong.  I dashed into the Wool House and asked for advice.  The man in the store led me straight back to the Zegna shelves and pulled out a bolt of the fabric I bought for my new finished object; this dress:


This fabric is thin, smooth, and I think it’s a blend of wool and mohair.  It has black and a grey-ey blue-y green-y threads and is an impossible-to-describe colour which somehow goes perfectly with that jacket.

This dress is made from a pattern I developed using PatternMaster Boutique or PMB.  I wrote all about it in a pattern review here.  I was thrilled to have a sheath dress that fit and that I thought looked pretty good.  I've never found a commercial pattern that did these two fairly simple things so this one is a keeper.

As soon as I bought the strangely-coloured fabric I knew it was going to be this dress.  Well, it had to be, because it was damnably expensive fabric and I only bought a small amount (I think 1.2 metres).  You see, another other great thing about this pattern is that it's a true fabric miser.

In this picture, the dress looks ripply and puckered.  I swear it does not look like that in real life.  Here's another picture, a sort of side view.  The pattern has lots of shaping seams - princess seams front and back and side seams and long shaping darts besides.











In the next pictures you can see a bit of the fabric up closer, if you click to open them.

They were taken in natural light so are somewhat truer to the actual strange colour which overall looks more green than blue.

Notice my not-perfect hand understitching at the neck edge.

To the right is the shoulder seam with princess seams meeting nicely.

The CB sports a simple slit opening for walking.  Notice the mitred corners.  The lining (Bemberg) is hand felled to the facing.  The dress is underlined with silk organza.  I decided not to serge the raw edges at seam allowances and hem to avoid show-through in the pressing, but found some black lace at the Fabric Flea Market which I used to finish the hem edge.  

And finally, it looks good with a jacket (or two).