Christmas dress

Since I mentioned the dress I made for Christmas day in my post yesterday I thought I would put a photo of it on my blog.

I learnt to sew at school, my first sewing machine lesson when I was 7 - they dont do that any more which is a shame because I did actually learn a fair bit, even if I was nearly a whole term cutting out and redoing hand made bias binding! I used to make all the girlies clothes when they were small but have not made anything worthwhile since the '80's.

I discovered Casey's blog about a year ago, envied the way she looked and her wonderful sewing talent. From there I found the Colettiere blog, and lurked quite a while but never managed to get hold of any of the patterns. In fact I found I was actually more in tune with the patterns on Wearing History (look at the wonderful details on some of those clothes!) but want to hone my skills before paying out so much for the patterns.

I ordered my Colette sewing book in November but it took ages to come, and I had been admiring the Danielle dress on Burdastyle for quite some time.

I had bought some red crushed velvet from Hobbycraft way back when I first saw it but finally thought I would have a go for Christmas.

The Burdastyle pattern was a free download but only went up to a size 16 so I had to hunt the web to find out how to grade the pattern for a larger size. My only mistake was that I didnt bother with the most important step, measuring myself, taking the assumption that since I had been trying on dresses in the shops at size 20 then that must be the size I was.
In actual fact I think that I must be nearer a Burda style size 18 once the full bust adjustment has been made (this is the reason I have to buy larger sizes off the peg, as shop made dresses do not take into account thos larger busted ladies with narrow shoulders and small(er) bodies and the reason I want/need to start making my own clothes. I did manage to get the fba spot on though even if the rest of the dress is obviously too big, despite me taking in a full 2 inches on the side seams after the final fitting.