New Dress!

Oh My God! Did I really post about New Kids on the Block?! That's what you get for sewing all day then blogging late at night! Yikes!

I've been sewing like crazy for the last week trying to finalize the design for my new Bossa Nova Baby dress. I've cursed my sewing machine on multiple occasions, ripped out stitches many times and thrown away a crap load of dress-gone-wrong pieces...but alas, it is finally done and I'm pretty happy with the finished product.

I love coming up with new designs, but the process I have to go through to get there is incredibly frustrating and painful. I always have to make at least 2 or 3 bad versions before I figure out exactly how the perfect version should be put together. Usually the original idea I have is impossible to do or just too labor intensive to consider making in multiples.

This time it was bias tape. I was planning to edge the entire dress in quarter inch bias tape in a contrasting color. Cute right? Well, I got out the bias binder attachment for my machine and the damn thing just wouldn't cooperate - not sure if it was the attachment or my machine but there were lots of skipped stitches and tangled threads! (If anyone out there has any bias binder tips I would love to hear them.) So I nixed the bias tape idea and had to completely re-think how the dress was going to be put together. I used several commercial patterns (both vintage and new) to get the proportions and sizing right then totally tweaked them to create my own design that fits a modern body but is vintage in style.

Here it is!

It's styled after the cute house dresses of the 1940's and 50's with a little bit of waitress uniform thrown in - notice the pointed cuffs on the sleeves! The one thing I think may change is that waistband - I'm thinking it needs to be a bit more narrow.

I made it a wrap dress so it would fit a wide range of sizes (and because my motto is "No Buttons, No Zippers!"). I was hoping to make it in 3 or 4 sizes but it looks like for now there will only be two - just like my skirts. I will add sizes as needed and will happily do custom orders. This dress is about a size 10 - my dress form is tiny and doesn't quite fill it out the way it should!

I heart pockets on my skirts and dresses - so a pocket was a must!

Now to name the dress...my skirts are called "Betty Skirts" so I'm thinking that this dress needs a similar vintage lady name...perhaps Vivian, Flo or Mabel? Any suggestions out there?

I'm planning to have a handful of these dresses in assorted cute vintage fabrics at the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn. They will most likely appear in my Etsy shop soon after that.