I am still in mourning for my beloved, faded Navy Spot Sundress, so when I saw this quilting cotton at the Knitting and Stitching Show, I knew it had potential as a replacement. I bought 2.75m but ended up only using 1.75m for this pattern.
I was going to make exactly the same pattern, New Look 6968, but Colette putting the Peony Dress on sale tipped me towards a new direction. I've admired it for a long time, 2013 in fact, when I rediscovered sewing, and first discovered the wonderful world of sewing bloggers. I love the bateau neckline, the cap sleeves and the flippy skirt.
It came together very quickly, but it did need quite a few fitting changes along the way. I cut a size 4 all the way through, with no grading. I am so pleased I did some blog research before I started sewing (but only after cutting - when will I learn?). The front bodice waistline darts are in a location that I just don't understand. They are unfathomably close together, I moved them out by 5/8", and moved the point of the side bust darts out by 2cm. (Apologies for mixing my units of measurement - I have a ruler in inches and a tape measure in cms.) My waist doesn't nip in as much as the pattern, so I reduced the legs of the front darts by 1.5cm. I did this at the waist only, the under bust portion is the same as the pattern. This means that my darts are not triangular, but rectangles with triangles at the top.
I didn't shorten the waist, but did do my usual 1.5cm sway back adjustment. I typically reduce the seam allowances at the waistline to 1cm so I did that here, in the bodice and the skirt. I also added binding to the seam joining the bodice and the skirt.
The neckline is very high and very wide. I reduced the seam allowances between the facing and the neckline to 1cm at the shoulders and it just covers my bra straps. If I hadn't I would have had to add bra carriers, but these would pull the bra straps to an uncomfortable angle, so I'm relieved this was enough. I lowered the front neckline by 1.5cm and it is still very high. All my dresses come up very large around the shoulders and I still need to pull the shoulder seams in by another 1cm (ie 2cm seam allowance at shoulder seams). [Update: I pulled the shoulders up by quite a lot - 1.5cm at the neckline, tapering out to nothing at the sleeve - I am much happier with how the whole bodice fits.]
After my festival of seam binding on the last dress I made, I had a change of heart. Seam binding adds a lot of bulk and can make the seams pucker. For this dress, I went with a really simple zig zag finish. It won't win any prizes for the most beautiful insides ever, but they do the job they are meant to do: be invisible and stop fraying.
Both my Colette dress patterns, the Dahlia and the Peony, have gathers at the waist, instead of skirt darts, which I really like, I think it suits me. I will possibly adapt all my future skirts to this method. This time though, I changed the skirt gathers into two small pleats. I think they look neater and smarter, and reduce the puffiness you get with gathers. I added a LOT of length to the skirt, I cut the skirt length to the size 18 and it added about 10cms to the length and I hemmed a 2cm hem. I am not entirely sure this is entirely right for me, but as I am pushing 40, my bare knees need to disappear from public life. I still might shorten it, or I might go back and make a straight skirt with a back vent. Peony with a pencil skirt is definitely on the cards for the future.
For me, the cummerbund belt really brings this dress together and makes it special. The picture above, without the belt looks pretty frumpy - a shorter skirt would help. I chose to add white piping to the edges of my belt, to give it some contrast with the dress. I made the inside in white cotton, but I don't expect I am going to wear it the wrong side out. It looks too much like a bandage, and a belt like this needs to be in a darker colour than the dress. I considered plain navy, but the cotton I had in my stash wasn't a perfect colour match, so white it was. I added a scrap of interfacing to the two edges of the belt to stabilise the buttons and button loops. I finally got to use the three navy buttons I bought in Italy that didn't make it onto Ruby Tuesday. Because they have a rope motif, I made button loops out of unadulterated piping cord and called it nautical. This is definitely not my excuse for avoiding cutting out, sewing up, turning and pressing proper button loops. No indeed!
Costs:
Pattern: Colette Peony, £7.72
Fabric: 1.75m, £10.06
Contrast Fabric: Rainbow Fabrics, Isle of Wight, 30cm, £1.80
Piping Cord: didn't record price.
Interfacing: scraps, £0.00
Thread: stash, £0.00
Buttons: Italy, £1.20
Total: £20.78
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