At long last, I have completed my own version of the Selkie Dress. It was quite an undertaking that pushed me to the very edge of my own skill and sanity. It is finished, but was it worth it?
As much as I love the Selkie style, the bodice is a problem for me. So I attempted to make my own less princess and more cottage version from cotton fabric. Since I love the Ritz style I wanted the bustier style bodice and I used the pattern from Daria Pattern Making. This pattern was inexpensive, well thought out and fairly easy to cut out.
It all fell apart at the cups on the bodice though and after several frustrating days spent pinning, basting, sewing, seam ripping, and repeating the process. I had to admit defeat, decided to scrap that bodice, and use a more simplistic version from Paperstxrs.
With the Daria pattern you could choose your size and the relevant portions of the pattern and only print those. Not so with Paperstxrs. 100 pages later, I had to take up my entire living room floor to assemble and tape the whole pattern together because none of the pages were numbered so that I could just find the pieces I needed and only assemble those. That process took me several hours and I counted it as a day of my project.
Apart from that, the Paperstxrs pattern was also inexpensive and watching the videos definitely helped me tremendously. Like me, Paperstxrs disliked the short bodice and lengthened it in her pattern. The result is so much nicer, I love this adjustment to the style.
Once I abandoned the bustier and overcame the pattern assembly, this project moved along rather quickly. Of course, in the midst of all this, both my vintage and my more modern sewing machines gave up their respective ghosts for different reasons and I made a desperate call to my mom begging her to let me borrow her Kenmore machine from the 1970s. If ever a machine had some battle scars, it was this one. But, it functioned and mine don't at present and potentially never again, so I made do and got the project done.
After that hellish sewing task was complete, I decided to make another Selkie inspired dress with shorter sleeves and a shorter skirt. Photos on that coming soon.
Now that it's all said and done, I can look back on this as a tremendous learning experience and I definitely can tell that my skill set has grown and improved, so a great big thank you to Paperstxrs and Daria for their videos and patterns. I love this dress, it's just what I wanted and I think I'll make another that combines elements of the other two dresses and perhaps try my hand at making that bustier bodice again.
Shopping Info: Dear Stella Digital Little Fawn & Friends Autumn Ferns & Leaves Cream and velvet from Fabric.com
This is a beautiful dress! it's a shame you had issues with your sewing machines though but good you could still get this finished - it is a lovely design you ended up with mixing the two together! :)
ReplyDeleteHope that your week is going well! Another rainy spring one here!