Vogue 9184: Very Easy? Not so much!

It is an easy dress pattern to whip up. That is if you actually follow the pattern instructions to the letter, do not veer off into couture sewing territory, do not focus too much on fit, and completely ignore Coco Chanel’s exhortation that the inside of a piece of clothing should be as beautiful as the outside. Do any one of those things, and you’ve got yourself a time-consuming and not super-easy dress-making project.

So, I told you about getting myself into this – veering first into a focus-on-fit situation that resulted in the requirement to create not only one but two fitting muslins, and also to actually redraft the front of the pattern. That and the cutting out finally done, I proceed to the sewing.

It’s a simple pattern: anyone with a modicum of garment sewing ability would be able to whip this up in no time. So that should be with me. However, there are a few issues.

I begin with the princess seams that I added to the pattern. Sewing them is really no problem, but I do find it best to hand-baste curves, so there goes the quick seaming! Then, of course, there is the question of what to do with the seam allowances. In my view, they simply cannot be left as is. There is the fraying issue, not to mention the ugliness of the interior of the garment. Hello Coco! There goes the quick seaming. After doing an overcasting test, I decide that the only appropriate seam finish (since I’m not prepared to do Hong Kong seams on a simple summer dress) is to turn and edge-stitch. So I do that and they press out well. Then I move to the back.

I stitch up the waist darts which I left in the back and prepare to do the zipper. The pattern says to do a simple slot zipper. I can see the wisdom of a centred zipper with the collar design – I had intended to do an invisible zipper, but in deference to the instructions, I bought a regular one. So I install it and it looks butt-ugly. So I unpick everything and start again. Since I still have only a regular zipper, I turn to my trusty lap zipper, a technique I have mastered. It looks much better, although I do realize that the neckline might be a bit of a challenge to get perfect. The next time, I’ll do an invisible zipper regardless of what the pattern says. So it’s on to shoulder seams and side seams.

The next fitting shows it to be still a big too big for me in spite of all those muslins! I re-pin the side seams, then have to hand-baste them for another fitting. I finally take them in and redo the side seams. I’m happy that I didn’t finish the seams yet.

The collar is an easy one, but I decide to use a ladder catch-stitch instead of a slip stitch inside to a smoother finish. The it’s the arm openings.

I decided to use a purchased bias binding (since I’ve never actually made my own binding, but it’s on the list of things to do), in a lighter shade than the dress. It’s an easy process and the top-stitching does give a nice finish. The hem and side slits are also top-stitched, and voila! It’s done. But I’m not ecstatic about it. It doesn’t hang as well as I’d like and that colour!

The flax colour of the linen-cotton blend is a neutral that I liked in the shop, but now it looks a bit like a fabric that you’d use to make a muslin. And about that drape – well, there is none.

Here’s where I made my mistake. I should have thought a bit more about the hand and drape of the fabric before I bought it. I had an idea in my mind that I wanted to emulate slightly the look of the linen-look dress in the original photograph. And the tone-on-tone stripes are more my style. When I go back to the pattern envelope, though, I note that linen isn’t even among the recommended fabrics, and I do think there is something to be said about using recommendations from the pattern company – to a point.

Fabrics have what is called ‘hand’, drape, weight and texture, among other characteristics. I’ve always know that each of these plays a part in fabric selection, but I find that I’m sometime drawn to a piece of fabric for its look, which includes colour. If I forget to take the bolt of fabric, unroll a two-metre length and hold it up to see its drape while considering the actual garment I’m about to cut, I’m in trouble. And so I have a dress that I’m not wild about, but does do the trick on a hot summer day.

Maybe all of this experience is as good a reason as any not to have a fabric stash – more about that later!