I made a dress a few weeks ago. I used the princess bodice from Gertie’s Ultimate Dress Book by Gretchen Hirsch. I had made another dress with this bodice last September in a class with Gertie herself I thought it was time for another one with short sleeves this time. The fabric I picked up a Joann’s when I went in for zippers or something and had a coupon. I couldn’t resist and I am hoping to get back to Disney World and so I’m planning my wardrobe for the imaginary trip.
I cut the dress and sewed it up. Before it was completely finished I put it on the mannequin to have a look. I like to do that to make sure I did the things right and do a little quality control. So here is the dress on the mannequin.
Sorry about the poor picture quality today. these are just pictures I took when I was thinking. I wasn;t thinking of a blog post at the time and now it’s too late to go back. Lol
Anyway, I liked the dress like this. It was fine. but it wasn’t great. So I let it sit there for a little while and pondered on it. Then I had an idea. What about a bot of something to separate the skirt from the bodice.
I liked the polka dots but I wasn’t really sure. The red was a nice pop. The black sequins were nice but not quite what I was thinking. So I decided to go with the red.
First thing was to separate the bodice from the skirt. You can’t just add a strip of fabric to the bottom of the bodice because then the waist won’t be in the right place so I decided to make the band about 2 inches wide. That meant I needed to remove 2 inches from the bottom of the bodice. there was some quick sketching and calculating to make sure I left enough for a seam allowance at the bottom edge before I cut.
I took that piece and used it for a pattern to cut the red band and I added another half inch to the width as the band would need to be sewn to both the bodice and the skirt.
After I sewed the red band I thought I’d really go for it so I dug out some red bias tape from my stash and added it to the hems at the sleeves and the skirt and voila! I was super happy with my new dress.
What kind of dress or skirt are you looking for? How can I help you get the outfit of your dreams?
