Panic at the wedding!

A couple of weeks ago two of my very lovely friends got married after many years together.  The bride is an exceptionally talented florist and she was doing her own flowers so I expected the venue to be beautiful (it was) and I wanted to make a special dress to wear for the reception.

I eventually settled on New Look 6447, view C with cap sleeves and full skirt and chose some very lovely rose print viscose from the stash.  Unfortunately it became clear once I'd finished the bodice that it was going to be a little too small.  I went ahead and attached the skirt and inserted the zip just to be sure (of what I have no idea) but, yeah that sucker was not doing up!  Ordinarily I would have completed the dress because it is only a little too small and once I'm back walking the kids to and from school everyday the extra summer fluff I've accumulated will hopefully disappear.  But as I had 3 days to go until the wedding I put it aside for later and started searching for a pattern I could put together quickly.  I will finish that dress soon and post photos once it's done.

Enter Colette Seamwork.  I will say that I probably don't make enough Seamwork patterns to really justify paying for it every month, but in this case it was really useful to have that option.  With patterns that are designed to be made quickly I was really hoping to find something I could use.  In the end I settled on Catarina, a pattern I had never considered before at all but looked quick to make and definitely a bit fancy in the right fabric.  Fortuitously I remembered I had some bird print crepe de chine at the back of my wardrobe, unused because even though I loved the print I'd decided it was a bit shiny for the kind of clothes I normally wear.  Perfect for a wedding though!

Decision made I stayed up late taping the pattern together and got sewing first thing next morning.  As predicted this was a really quick project.  There is a lot of gathering needed before attaching the skirt to the bodice and obviously I hated every second of that but even that didn't really take too long.  Once the skirt was attached I slightly deviated from the instructions which ask you to remove the basting from the gathers and sew in clear elastic, stretched so as to gather in the waistline further.  I decided that sounded like absolutely no fun at all so I overlocked the edges of all the waist seam allowances together, leaving a small gap and fed some ordinary elastic into the resulting channel.  It looks fine and seems easier so I'd definitely do it that way again.

For a last minute panic dress I'm really pleased with how this turned out.  I was worried it would be too long and the skirt too voluminous for me but actually it looked just how I hoped it would.  I would say that the bodice is a little large, as the original dress was too small I picked a larger size than I might otherwise have done.  However, even though the bodice does gape away from my body at the underarms, there are no closures on this dress so I do wonder if it might be difficult to get on and off if the bodice actually fitted correctly so I probably would err on the side of too big with this one if I were to make it again.  Oh, also I didn't make the waist tie.  Basically I couldn't be arsed.

I had a fantastic time at the wedding, so much so I failed to take any photos of me wearing my dress, but it was absolutely perfect for the occasion and I was so glad I managed to make something myself rather than falling back on a hastily purchased Amazon Prime dress which has definitely happened at least once before!