new year’s eve dress.

As I continue to attempt to teach myself how to sew, I have small moments of greatness where I really impress myself.  My New Year’s Eve dress was one of these moments.  My mom had offered to babysit for us for the night and, since we hadn’t been out on New Year’s Eve since Bennet was born, I really wanted to have a nice dress to wear to celebrate our evening of freedom.  As with most things, I procrastinated until the last possible moment and started sewing the night before.  While I certainly wouldn’t recommend this method, sewing under pressure really brings about some of my best work, and I must say I was very pleased with the way the dress turned out.

I used Simplicity New Look 6824 for my pattern, and grabbed some fabric last minute from the 60% off bin at Jo-Ann.  The top is a cream-colored satin and the bottom is a black, striped material that looked like it would be good for a dress – I’m not too choosy when shopping the bargain bin. 

There were a lot of firsts for me with this one – It was the first dress I’ve sewed that had a lining, the first zipper I’d ever put in (the most stressful experience of my life,) and the first time I’d used a pattern that used mix & match pieces.  I really would say that such a pattern is a must-have for dress-making if you’re built like I am.  The size of my top half is much smaller than my hips, so to be able to make the parts of the dress separately so that the bodice and the skirt were different sizes was great.

There are so many mix & match options with the pattern – I really can’t wait to do more with it and make some fabulous dresses.  Now, if I could just nail the zipper-insertion thing…