Mad Men Dress Challenge 2…Better Late Than Never

Well I had great intentions of finishing my dress in time for Julia Bobbin’s Mad Men Dress Challenge 2 deadline but somehow life got in the way. Since Julia posted the BIG REVEAL today and I just finished my dress, I figured it was the perfect time to reveal my Betty, Joan, Megan mashup dress. My body style is most like Joan, my dress style is most like Betty, and my fabric/color style is most like Megan.   After perusing tons of Mad Men photos and my fabric stash, I settled on this:

Mad Men Challenge Close Up Dress

Betty Draper Shirred Neckline Dress

Betty Draper Wide Waist Dress

Mad Men Challenge Full Dress

The pattern is the Romantic Floral Tunic Dress from Kay Whitt’s Sew Serendipity book. I left off the ruffle along the bottom and added a wide obi style belt to accentuate my waist. The fabric is from my statsh and was a vintage ebay find from a small Palm Beach seller. The fabric is a cotton sateen supposedly from the late 60’s or early 70’s and seemed to marry my love for Betty’s clothing and Megan’s color choices  perfectly. My dress was relatively easy to make and will be a great addition to my summer wardrobe. What do you think?

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Maria Mexican Folk Dress Sewing…FAIL!

As any sewist can tell you, there are times when despite your best efforts you fail to produce a wearable garment. Such is the case with my attempt at Sew Serendipity’s Maria Mexican Folk Dress. I love to embroider and planned to incorporate that hobby with my budding garment sewing passion. I have used patterns from Sew Serendipity’s Kay Whitt before with much success so I was expecting the same outcome this time around. The pattern is from Kay’s Fashion Formula Dresses booklet which provides step by step instructions for three dresses you make using your measurements instead of a pattern. The yoke was super easy and fit well but the rest of the dress just did NOT work.

Let me clarify lest you think it was Kay’s pattern as opposed to operator error. The pattern DID work as Kay intended, it just was not a flattering pattern on me. I am a definite pear shape with the smallest part of me being my waist. As you can see from the photos below, the gathering at the bust completely hides my waist and actually makes me look much larger than I am (possibly even heavily pregnant!). Obviously, this was not the look I was going for. In some of the pamphlet examples, Kay has on belt which I also tried. Unfortunately due to the large differential between my waist and hips, a belt just seemed to emphasize how much extra fabric the actual dress part contained. After completely taking the dress apart, cutting about 12 inches out of the width then trying again with not much luck, I consider this a FAIL. The fabric is now going to be used for the Colette Meringue skirt.

Final thoughts: This design would still most likely work fine for someone who is slender or bigger on top than bottom but pear shaped ladies may want to choose a different style.