Party Dress!

Another Gertie Hirsch pattern coming at you, this time number 5882 I fell in love with the pattern when I saw it in the Butterick look-book but I did not think it would be flattering on my double Ds. However I was reading Gertie's Blog for Better Sewing and she had a post on how this shelf bust can actually be flattering on larger breasts because it cuts across the breast instead of underneath it and thus serves to visually minimize the bust. I was almost convinced with that post, but then she followed it up with a tutorial on how to do a full-bust alteration(FBA) and I was sold.

This dress was my first attempt at a FBA and it was easier than I thought it would be. I made a muslin, but of course I didn't take any pictures of it. I ended up with the right amount of fabric for the bust, but when I tried it on initially the side seams were sitting at an angle rather then nice and vertical. What I ended up having to do was add two inches to the front of the dress and take away those two inches in the back so that my seams all angled the right ways (or rather, didn't angle). I am totally kicking myself for not taking pictures of that process.

Here is the first picture I took, of the bodice almost full assembled.

Bodice boned, but not lined, and attached to the skirt, but I don't think the straps were attached yet and the skirt was not yet hemmed. 

And here it is, fully assembled and not so flattering looking on the hanger, but as I hope you can tell from the above picture it ended up fitting pretty well (especially with a strapless bra, unlike in the above photo were my strap is totally showing). I actually took this picture after the party, so the dress is kind of wrinkly. Oh well.

I really only got one good action shot of the dress at the party. Mom and I were both so busy having fun that we sort of forgot about that whole taking pictures thing. So, here I am with my grandfather and my "little" brother. I have to say, when I was making the dress and trying it on I did think it was very flattering from the front, but from the side it is not visually minimizing my bust line. 

One of the things that I do want to note is that the straps are cut on the bias, I think they have to be in order to curve around the bust detail like that, but that also meant that when I hung the dress to let the bias on the skirt hang out before hemming the straps also stretched and sort of twisted a little bit, which I wasn't very happy about. 

I love the hem of this dress though. I used horsehair braid (again following a tutorial from Gertie's Blog). I had never used it before and now I am totally in love with the stuff. It won't give you petticoat type volume, but it did make my skirt stand out just a bit and made it delightfully swishy. It almost made for a very clean, very pretty looking hem. I am totally in love and want to use it in all of the things now. 

And one last point of love with this pattern is that it is fully lined, so everything on the inside is nice and neat and clean looking. I used cotton batiste for the lining and plain old cotton for the dress.