Who’s Afraid of a Big, Bad Dress?

I’m more of a separates sewist than a dressmaker. I’ve made a few dresses, sure, but I don’t love making them. When you’re pear-shaped, as I am, you run into fit challenges unless you stick to the old fit-and-flare look. And when your shoulders are uneven, as mine are, the calculus for the drape of a dress can be daunting.

But so far, so good with the Faye dress from the fall Fibre Mood magazine.

The dress uses more than 4 yards of fabric – rayon challis in this case. I finished the body of the dress, including the hidden button placket, while on vacation. I just need to put on the sleeves, sew the side seams and pockets, make the buttonholes, and hem it. OK, so still a lot to do…

The bodice includes a flap that adds interest to the top. They went in pretty easily, and the pattern matching wasn’t bad. One flap is sort of a mirror image of the other rather than a match, but I decided to live with it.

The only thing that gave me agita were the pleats – three on the bodice and three matching ones on the skirt. This was, frankly, a mess to do because here’s what the pattern looks like if you trace it from the magazine:

If you’re thinking of trying this at home, and you haven’t bought the magazine yet, I’d buy the printed pattern just to avoid this train wreck.

Moving on… I got the pleats in OK for the bodice and just estimated where the pleats should go for the skirt. But the pieces would not line up. The pleats for the skirt are supposed to be deeper, but I will be damned if I can figure out how. So there is an extra pleat on the skirt. With this busy print, I bet you can’t tell.

Trust me, it’s there. I am living with it and moving on…

The directions for the hidden button placket aren’t very intuitive. Luckily, I have made hidden plackets before. In fact, I love them and it’s a reason I wanted this dress.

Since this dress is such a fabric hog (4+ yards, people!) you could eliminate the hidden button placket in favor of a regular one, and also shorten or remove from fullness from the skirt to save a yard.

Then the bias neckline binding went on. The directions say to cut the bias binding on the fold. Do not do this. Sheesh! How hard is it to cut a straight 22-inch by 1.5 inch strip of fabric on the bias? Sometimes I scratch my head…

Hoping to finish this weekend. Not that I have anywhere to wear it, but I can dream…