Sorry I didn't post yesterday. When you start your day at 7:30 a.m. in Manhattan and end it at 12:30 a.m. in Madison, Wisconsin, some things tend to fall by the wayside, like eating and blogging.
I think the lack of sleep has made me cranky, because even though there were some really pretty dresses listed over the last 24 hours on eBay, this homemade horror is what caught my eye. No offense to the (very game) model in the picture, but this is my worst nightmare, and it's not made any less horrific just because it happens to me fairly often.
This is what I mean: you spend a lot of time sewing something, and in your head, while you're pinning, cutting, seaming, and pressing, it looks FANTASTIC. Gorgeous. The fabric is your one true love. You can feel how nicely the dress will fit, like you'd feel a phantom limb.
And then you put in the zipper, climb into it, and it looks like this. Arrrrgghhh!
It's the triumph of hope over experience. You think "oh, THIS TIME the [empire waist|sash belt|jewel neck|whatever went wrong before] will look GOOOOOOD." Even if you make the same dress over and over, and never try anything new, occasionally the fabric and pattern will conspire and fight each other instead of reaching sartorial harmony.
I may print this out and put it up in my sewing "atelier" as an object lesson, but I don't think it will do any good. Hope always trumps experience. And anyway, I have this idea for a new dress …
A Dress A Day 
How would you fix this dress? Put it on someone shaped differently? Change the fabric?Or do you think it’s unfixable while still retaining the same dress-nature?
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Everything in this dress conspires to makes the wearer to look short-waisted and chunky. The wide belt, the 3/4 length sleeves, the pleats in the front of the skirt.You might try narrowing the sleeves to fit below the elbow. take out the pleats and replace the belt. Ideally, you could actually drop the waistline a good inch at this point, but probably not possible.IMHO
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That happens to me, too. I put the thing on and the fabric isn’t drapy enough for the cut, or the facing is such a bad idea that it will never drape well (that’s the same blouse in two different fabrics), or I just haven’t matched the scale of the fabric to the scale of me.Sigh. This happens with writing, too…Speaking as a dress doctor, if I were actually trying to salvage this dress, I’d remove the belt, chop off the sleeves, and make a loose overdress in some interesting fabric: perhaps burnout velvet on chiffon.But in practice I’d merely *intend* to do that and it would hang reproachfully in my closet.
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I would get the lady a better bra (it’s just crying out for a period bullet bra), make it a sleeveless dress with a v-neck, and lose the belt. Then maye a nice little capelet or bolero.
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Yeah, I was thinking the best way to fix this dress is to fit it for a longer-waisted (and perhaps flatter-chested) woman.Start at the beginning, so to speak.
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You know, insanity is when you keep doing the same thing over and over, hoping for a different result.Like me and a normal width shoe……but it’s a great deal and SO lovely…..
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I don’t know if anything can help a dress made out of irridescent cyanide-solution-blue fabric. That has to be the fugliest material I’ve ever seen in my life!
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Yes…. hmmm…. it doesn’t fit, does it? It’s at least a size too big for you.I’d go for a lower neck; higher waist with a small, styley, squared-off 50’s bow in the centre; sleeves about 2″ shorter and fitted. Oh, and you need to re-cut the shoulder-seam and sleeve head so they sit On Your Shoulder (which will loose the requisite 2″ from the length). Then fit the skirt so it really shows off your curves and leave a centre-back slit from the knees down. You also need to loose a good 3″ from the skirth length. Sex is the only thing that’s going to salvage this sack. Oh, and an iron.
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*Hmm .. i think it looks nice .. some great jewelry, shoes, bag, hair, makeup, a great attitude, and it’s a knockout !*
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See my comments to the October 8 entry. This is why I fear that style of dress.–Lydia
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