The ‘Pastel Pastille’ Dress

I’m sitting out a Sew Weekly challenge. There, I said it.  I’m feeling totally guilty but after last week’s romper fiasco, I remembered that one of my goals for 2012 is to make things that are wearable.  While I definitely have some items that could have been used for the refashion challenge (including that romper), I wanted to make sure that I’m getting some other projects completed that I’ve had on my list, and I wasn't ready to work on my refashion just yet.

With that said, one of the projects that I did want to get done for this week was the Pastille dress for the Sew Colette sewalong.  I’ve had this floral print fabric in my stash for over a year. I wish I kept my purchase details, but I don’t think it was too expensive, and I always shop with a coupon.  When I saw the Pastille pattern, I knew that’s what the fabric would be used for.  

The Facts

Fabric: Cotton print. I think I got it from JoAnn’s over a year ago but I honestly can’t remember the price. I’m going to say it was approximately $15 for a little over 3 yards.

Pattern: Colette Pastille from the Colette Sewing Handbook

Year: 2011

Notions: 2 yards of lace trip $3, 1 zipper $2

Time to Complete: 6 hours

First worn: This past Sunday

Wear again: Yes! I love it!

Total Price: ~$20

The pattern was really easy to put together.  The dress shape reminds me of the top for Colette’s Crepe dress, but in a non-wrap from.  Which is awesome because I rarely have 5 yards of fabric to spare.  The biggest challenge was the bottom pleats.

I broke up the ‘tracing’ stitching by doing the front dress panel first.  After I attached the sides, I made sure that the back panels lined up, and then stitched in the tracing seams.    I think this helped to ensure that the pleats were even when it came time for pressing.

The pleats were the most time consuming part of the process.  Just lining everything up,  tracing the proper lines to the patterns, sewing in the tracing stitches, assembling, stitching, pressing... whew!  I added a little extra feature to the dress by adding lace under the final pleat.  It just peaks through, but I love the look.  It just makes it a little more girly.  Because of the final pleat design, I took a couple of inches off of the final hem.

A little lace trim on the bottom pleat

I love how the dress came out! I’d been looking forward to doing it, but got lazy whenever I thought about doing the pleats.  Now that it’s done, I’m totally happy with it and glad I had the sewalong to encourage me to finish it.

What I Watched:

The Phantom of the Opera (2004)

Dear Frankie (2004)

I was on a Gerard Butler kick...