Velvet Inspiration: Pattern Suggestions Please?

So I haven’t exactly finished my current velvet dress project but I’m already onto thinking about the next one. I saw this amazing dress in an etsy shop but unfortunately it is a touch too small in the waist (damn you 1950s sizing!) Also, I feel like I’ve seen a couple of sewing patterns for this type of dress and was wondering if anyone had any pattern suggestions to make this?

VELVET HOURGLASS Dress – 90s does 50s – Handmade – xs

But it got me thinking more about velvet and velveteen dresses and how they are both classy and super warm – which is important as we are heading into winter down here in the Southern Hemisphere. So here are some velvet dresses for inspiration.

Velvet A-Line Dress

ASOS Velvet Puff Sleeve Dress

Velvet Halter Dress – Looks Lovely in Plum Too

Little Velvet Dress – Red Dress

And my personal favourite – unfortunately no link *cries*

What ‘s your winter fashion fix?

Vogue 1183: Help Please?

I had such high hopes for this dress. I was hoping to get lots of wear out of it during the summer. However it has been shelved because, so far, it looks like this:

I was going to ask my sister to take another photo of me seeing as I half blinked in this one but I thought that it was quite in line with how the dress turned out. Also, yes, I haven’t hemmed it yet, it’s just too disheartening.

Where did I go wrong? It is baggy in all the wrong places and too tight in others:

And the fabric is definately not strong enough to hold that upright cross-over shape in the bodice (I pinned it together in the photo at the top).

What a disappointment. I was going to shelve it away and ignore the fact that it didn’t turn out at all, even vaguely wear-able; put it in a drawer somewhere and never look at it again.

Then I thought that’s not what this blog is for. This blog is for learning (geeky, I know). So here is my question – how do I fix this dress? Where should I pull it in? Or let it out? If I take it in at the sides then will it make the front even more gape-y? Or is it just too late?

All suggestions muchly appreciated.

Editing the Pattern

This dress has not been at all easy to put together, that I’ll tell you for free.

One of the many problems that I encountered on the seemingly perpetual journey to completing it was that when it came time to attach the midriff to the skirt I could not, for love nor money, sweat nor tears, get the seams to match up on the two piece. After to much gesticulation I thought that perhaps it might be better to do it a different way to the instructions:

 

 

I wonder if anyone else has had the same problem with this pattern?

Vogue 1102

This was my third dress this year. I thought I’d try something different and a bit more of a challenge. The first pattern I used was “very easy” and this was “easy”.

I found this on the vogue website and decided to give it a whirl:

Although it was a lot more material than the other dresses I’d made the sales assistant at Centrepoint Fabric thought it wouldn’t be too hard. So I decided to go for it.

The assistant was very helpful. She suggested I choose a wool crepe. This meant that unlike the model photo my dress turned out more flowy and less stiff. I really like the way that skirt and bodice turned out on my dress but was a little disappointed that the bow didn’t stand up as well as in the photo.

Here are some photos:

I really like the way that this dress turned out to have lots of shape as well as being really comfortable and loose-fitting.

And I think the bow is really cute:

On a side note I thought that if was going to take up sewing seriously then I should measure myself properly. I was surprised to realise that I was a 12 or 14 for bust and waist measurements. However I ended up taking in 2 cm on each side of the bodice waist, tapering off as I got to the arm hole and adjusting the skirt to side seams to match – so there! I wonder if anyone else has found vogue sizes to be quite ungenerous?