Socialite Dress

I love making clothes.  My kids will never run out of pj pants, and I love dressing my daughter up in crazy cute dresses, but I haven't made much for myself.  Clearly I needed to fix this, since clothes in stores are usually boring and not made to fit me. 

Enter the Socialite Dress from Anna Maria Horner.  Thanks to her site's rummage sale, I was able to get it half off because of a rip on the cover.  I love how simple it is.  It just drapes off the body, but it's cut so that there's just enough shape and you're not just wearing a sack.

(The aqua fabric at the bottom of the stack is a Michael Miller that became my second Socialite Dress)

I'm so glad I made a muslin first with this dress.  My measurements were in different proportions than the suggested size, so while I kept the top mostly the same, I added a bit more wiggle room in the booty.  Luckily, I was able to just mark out how much more room I wanted to add, an inch at the armpit and two inches at the hip down, and then mostly just followed the original curve of the dress. 

Then, to make sure that the pockets would still line up, I measured from the armpit down to the first mark for the pocket and made sure that these were the same on both pattern pieces and the original.  I used the same method to make sure the notches would line up too.

And I almost forgot to give myself extra fabric for the armhole facings.  Remembered that just as I was about to cut them, and was able to add two inches to the end to compensate for the inch I'd added to each armpit.

(Goofy face, because running around the backyard taking photos of myself is just weird.)

The result is perfect (maybe a little short, but perfect for leggings).  I love this crazy firework pattern from Anna Maria Horner, called Shattered from her Innocent Crush line.  And how perfect is it that this was the yardage I'd bought to make a dress a month before I decided on what pattern to use.  I only wish I'd been able to finish it before the Fourth of July, because it would have been breezy with just a hint of patriotism. 


Linking up with The Train To Crazy's Make It, Wear It Thursday!