Well, I have a birthday coming up and it's a bit of a big one. I'll be 30 on the 31st! I wanted to make a special dress to wear out to whatever festivities might pop up and purchased the Winter Wear Designs Bateau Dress. Since I have a HUGE problem with deadlines I signed up for the WWD Blog Tour to keep me on track. Then I just had to choose fabric. I purchased this Michael Miller Retro Dot fabric from Classy Fabric a few months ago. If you haven't already you should join her Facebook group. The customer service is great and you get your fabric way before you've forgotten what you've ordered.
Have I ever mentioned that I ADORE black and white? And Polkadots? So, Michael Miller Retro Dots and a Retro style dress? Mmm... sounded perfect to me! Except the fabric was only 44" wide. In trying to make the 44" fabric work for a full circle skirt I took some liberties with my fabric. I added extender pieces on the side courtesy of this tutorial from Skirt Fixation until I had about a 60x60" square of fabric. Although the fabric isn't directional there was really no way to match the print to my liking so I didn't worry about it. I folded the fabric twice and cut a full circle skirt, yay! I did omit the pettiskirt, but I'm thinking i'll definitely add one next time round and maybe even have some peek out of the bottom.
On the day of the shoot it rained so I got a little creative. Too bad I'm not a 4 year old with adorable rainboots to splash in, but I still had fun!
In eagerness to get out of the weather I neglected to get a better closeup of my lovely fabric.
I had some "user error" fit issues because my sizes are so mixed up and range from a size 2 - 6 but inverted according to the size chart. Also, my bust and cup makes fitted bodices an issue for me each and every time. I'd say this is WWD Bateau Dress: Take 1. The instructions were easy understand and the zipper was a jiffy even without a zipper foot. (I broke my zipper foot the first time I ever used it and learned it to install zippers without it.) I like that the pattern makes professional finishing a simple and automatic part of the pattern. All in all I am loving my dress and can't wait to wear it to dinner next week.
If you've missed any of the previous posts you can see them all here:
Be sure to follow along all week and check out the fabulous bloggers!
1/17/16: Larissa from Connected By A Thread
1/18/16: Ula from Lulu & Celeste
1/19/16: Tibeca from Sewing By Ti
1/20/16: Kelly from Handmade Boy & Tameka from Savannah & Co
1/21/16: Essence from Adventures with Bubba & Bug & Teronia from Crazy Crafty Haute Mama
1/22/16: Cindy from Cindy Parrett & Patricia from Sew Far North
1/23/16: Sharon from Sweet Pea & Pumkins & Fenna from Fabulous Home Sewn
Don't forget to pick up your own copy of the patterns featured this week from Winter Wear Designs and save 20% off any purchase of $5 or more through the 25th of Jan with the code BLOGIT20!
Thanks for stopping by and feel free to link up in the comments if you happen to sew one up yourself. Ciao!