that Christmas dress

So, I mentioned that I made my Christmas dress.  My neighbor gave me several yards of black velvet two years ago.  She bought it years ago to make dresses for her daughters and now they've grown and left the house. They didn't want velvet dresses.  I offered to make something for Bee, but she wasn't interested.  She hates velvet.  She doesn't like the way it moves back and forth when you touch it.  In my dreams, She would have had a beautiful dress and Lou a little matching vest.  I thought and thought about what to do with it and then decided that a dress for me was about the only option.

I picked out a pattern for myself.  I was looking for something classic and kind of vintage looking.  It was black velvet after all.  It's Simplicity 2144, part of the project runway series. I bought it on 99 cent pattern day at Joanns and only needed to buy a zipper.  I have less than $4 in this dress!  It wasn't a difficult sewing project, but to get the fitted top and what not, it did require me to rip out and re-sew several parts, several times.  I had to rework the size and shape of the neck line and sleeve openings.  I might have tried it on 87 times while making it.  I'm not in love with the sleeves tops, but they are way better than they were four sewings ago.

Next time, I'll need a dress form or a maybe will make a duck tape dress form.  Have you seen those?  It has pockets, which is my favorite part.  At the end, I had to add a belt.  If I'd finished it a few days before I did (which happened to be Christmas eve), I'd have picked up a different belt.  You can't tell in the photo, but I'm literally sewn into this belt. This dress took all the fabric, which I measured out to be about 4 1/2 yards.  It's a good thing Bee didn't want anything.

Anyway, it's a little dressy to wear to any place I frequent.  I wore it to Christmas Eve service at church, but even at the 7pm candlelight service, I was overdressed.  I saw more jeans than anything.  I'm slow to get on the 'dress jeans' bandwagon.