Christmas Sewing

Simplicity 2724

I have to admit, I glanced at this pattern and moved on. First of all, the one dress is...well...pink. I don't like pink. As a rule, I do not choose to wear pink (my pink wool cape is an absolute exception to this rule, but I have no clue why). The other two dresses looked "OK" just not something I would wear. But then I was on patternreview.com and saw this dress made up in a beautiful green and suddenly it spoke to me!!! I love green. I really, really love green. So I decided to make this for my Christmas dress.

I couldn't find green fabric that I liked, so I've opted for Navy. I figure this might also carry me through a few other seasons without it looking to Christmas. I normally wear red for Christmas exclusively, so this is a definite change for me.

Let me start by saying this is day 4 on making this dress, and I am at the last sleeve facing insert. The first photo is the "almost" finished bodice. The skirt isn't even cut yet. I don't know if this is a particularly difficult pattern, but for me, it is very time consuming!! The ruffle you see on photo 2 uses a very different technique than I've ever done, and I pinned and re-pinned that sucker to get it to look the way I wanted it to.

The pleats that you see in photo 3 gave me fits too. Also the sleeve facing for it requires hand slip stitching. I'm not good at hand stitching of any type! So I did a blind hem stitch on that except for the pleated part (I didn't want to get those perfect pleats caught!). Then I had to carefully tack the facing to the pleated part. If I make this pattern again (aka, if it looks good on me once it's done!) I'm going to make this a very casual summer dress, and go with sleeve facings so I don't have to mess with these pleats ever again.

When my kids leave for school, I'll cut the skirt out and start fitting that before I pin it to the bodice. The skirt has inverted pleats, which I think are much more flattering for my figure type. Aside from that, it "looks" like it should be pretty easy. I'm also debating putting in a side zipper. I used taffeta for this dress that bought online. It's a little heavier than other taffeta's I've used before. However, I didn't have to use an interfacing as a result, so it all worked out. I'll post the skirt photo's in a bit.