at the end of january, eric's aunt was being recognized at a big retirement dinner at the really posh pierre hotel in manhattan. after fretting about "what to wear," i decided i wanted to make a dress for the event, as eric's immediate and extended family would be there, and what better audience would there be for my sewing?? i chose "view a" of butterick 5520, the dress all the way to the right on the envelope below:
i paired a deep purple velvet with this cream boxy-woven wool from shirley. (do note that "from shirley" means luxe... real luxe... girl has some amazing taste in fabric!) i didn't want to be a drab new yorker dressed in all black. here i am using my me-built table to cut fabric! i figured that cutting cream wool on the floor would get it all dirty.
i ended up lining the velvet shoulders with a thin green and red plaid wool that i had in my stash of fabric scraps because the velvet was much flowier than the wool, and attaching the velvet on top of the cream wool would make it too thick and stiff.
i wish i had a good pic of the purpleness of the velvet. i love it. it's just the slightest hint of purple.
this was where i ended by the time the dinner came around: the bottom had to be hemmed still and the zipper in the back was not installed yet. =( i felt like i had lost on project runway. it was upsetting. i worked until 30 mins before i had to start getting ready for the event, but eventually came to terms with the fact that i just wouldn't be done in time. i ended up wearing a black jacquard strapless dress by theory with a black blazer. #drabnewyorker =(
last night, i finally finished! yes, on feb 11... all but 2 seam lines/darts match perfectly!!
here's why the dress took so long: the shoulders were very mooshy because of the wool lining, the silk lining, and the velvet, so i had to handstitch it all down so that it flowed like one piece of fabric. so tedious! and yes, i lined this entire dress with my silk-egyptian cotton blend bedsheet! i figured the luxe outside warranted a luxe inside...
the back of the skirt had a slit! i've never made a skirt with a slit before because the way one has to attach the lining to the skirt around a slit can get complicated. this one wasn't so bad:
look how narrow my shoulders are! the purple velvet sleeves are SO close together. i took it in by 4 inches across the back. this pattern was intended for a linebacker!
i'm going to wear this dress to parent teacher conferences in 2 weeks, dressed down with black opaque tights and knee length boots. i'm also going to break up all the cream with a thin black patent leather belt. eric promised me we'd go on a fancy date as well, so i can wear it to a fancy event. i'll post pics of both!
how's bunks doing? he's good... making friends with large cats and bossing them around. he's taken to chasing them instead of letting them chase him. are you surprised?
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