Pattern: Vogue 1194
Fabric: ITY jersey from Metro Textiles in NYC
Shoes: Anne Klein
Fact: I made this dress almost two years ago, wore it once, and never blogged about it.
However, thank goodness I had it handy for our engagement photos we took a few weekends ago! Originally, I planned on wearing another “never blogged” wrap dress I made last year to coordinate with the plaid shirt my fiancé was going to wear, but I opted for the contrasting color of this DKNY dress instead (and I’m glad I did). I seriously don’t know why I only wore this dress once – maybe I didn’t like the fit? I think I was crazy, because now that I “found” this dress, it will be in heavy rotation in the next few weeks for upcoming customer meetings at work.
What I clearly do remember about this dress was that it wasn’t fun to make with all of the fiddly pleating on this flimsy knit fabric. The neckline was also way too deep for my liking, which I read about others running into over on Pattern Review, so I stitched/tacked the center of the “v” higher up to avoid the neckline gaping open too wide. I also omitted the pockets since they would have shown through the fabric and wouldn’t have been very functional out of a stretchy jersey.
The twisty band around the bodice was also finicky to get right. There was a lot of strategic tacking to get the band to lay correctly and to spread out the twists evenly across the front. This could also be attributed to the slinky nature of the fabric, but it’s a nice enough touch that I was determined to get it to look just right.
I don’t own a lot of solid dresses, and haven’t made a lot of solid dresses (#prints4eva), so this one saved the day when it came to figuring out what to wear for the engagement photos that will be on our “Save the Date”s, wedding website, and printed and framed for family (as well as for our house). I’m so glad I took a chance on this dress that I didn’t think I liked, and re-discovered something in my closet that wasn’t getting a lot of wear.
Beautiful dress! I love the colour of the fabric and the twisty band. It is a nice little detail.
That's such a stunning colour! I thought it was silk at first – but a knit is so much better! Hope you get lots of wear from it now!