Rose Violet Dress : New Look 6968 Take 2

'Cabaret' is one of the designated colours for Pantone Spring Palette 2012.  According to Pantone’s report, designer Peter Som’s interpretation of ‘Cabaret‘ was inspired by ‘Roses in their myriad of colours’ and the signature colour shall be ‘Rose Violet – it’s feminine and flattering but also bold and assertive’.

A collection of ‘Cabaret Pantone’ pictures I found online.

The Facts

Fabric: 1 yard of 60 inch width Polyester fabric at RM8.80/USD3 (I do not think it is exact Cabaret colour but I think it’s close), it is the same kind of fabric as my Royal Blue Dress & 1 yard of satin lining fabric at RM2/USD0.60

Pattern: New Look 6968, View B. I reused the pattern from last week’s Mad Men Challenge (View D)

Notions: Basic Zipper

Time to complete: Lost count! I am a very slow sewist!

First worn: To work on Monday

Wear again? Of course!

Total Cost (excluding pattern): Approximately RM12 / USD4

Pattern Notes and Thoughts:

I have written quite a comprehensive review of this pattern on my last blog entry, so I shall not reproduce it here. This dress is actually a knock-off of a sheath dress I saw at the mall last month, the original dress was in stone colour with simple Peter Pan collars and flaps on the waist – very Audrey Hepburn-ish I think. I really liked it when I tried on the mall version but it was a bit snug on me and it was the last one on the rack. I told my friend, ‘I will attempt to make one just like this!’. And so I did.

I used View B of the pattern and drafted my own collars, which is quite easy to draft as the collars do not extend all the way to the back, so you don’t have to match the front and back bodice patterns together first when you draft the collar. I wished I had drafted the collars slightly wider though. The flaps on the waist are from Simplicity 2282 (My Socialite Dress).

I attempted to add side pockets to the skirt but hacked them off in the end as they gaped too much and the lining kept showing, I am not sure what went wrong. If anyone knows a good side pocket tutorial, do buzz me! I left the armscyes to the last because I wanted to sew on the basic zipper first and not left the zipper to the last. At first I just folded in the seam allowances along the armscye and slip stitched it to the lining (and even reinforced the stitch by double edge stitching each armscye). When I tried the dress on, the alignment of the main fabric with the lining wasn’t perfect and caused the main dress fabric to be pulled and distorted. So the seam ripper became my best friend as I had to let out all the edge stitches and the slip stitch, by that time the seam allowances were almost tattered. Thus I salvaged the situation by just bias binding the armscye.