Vogue 8995 - It's All About Refitting and more Refitting

I've made Vogue 8995 before. It made my top five of 2014 garments. It should be an easy sew because the pattern alterations have already been made - BUT - and there always seems to be a but! My weight loss means that nothing fits like it use to.

So I started with the pattern alterations I made for the spring linen version. I've had to make several more alterations to make the dress fit me now. Thank goodness for a lot of seams because it made the alterations easy. As an aside, I'm now wondering if the original dress will fit come spring. *sigh*

Anyway, I've taken the back waist seams in an additional half inch on either side to give the back a closer fit. I'm sure that many would say that I could take it in even more but to be honest, I'm just not that comfortable with such a close fit yet. I also keep thinking what if I gain some weight back...what will I wear then? I'm straddling a fine line here and one step to either the left or right could end me up in the soup - so I'm straddling it and being cautious.

On the front I've pegged the center piece so that it looks more like the original pattern and not my hybrid above. I probably could peg the side seams a little to give it a bit more defined fit but more of that line straddling - y'know!

Okay how about some stats:

Fabric ~
2.5 yards of light pink worsted wool crepe purchased from Fabric Mart eons ago.

Notions ~
22" pink invisible zipper
1" lace that was tea dyed and left over from this dress
2.5 yards pink bemberg rayon lining purchased from Elegance Fabrics in NYC
Silk organza used to underline all of the pieces
Pink rayon seam binding

A few construction pics and info:

As stated in my previous post about this dress, I underlined each piece of the wool crepe with silk organza. I went back and forth about adding piping to the neckline and sleeve hems and finally decided not to. The bemberg rayon lining was added to the dress. Some of the construction details are shown in the collage below...

The other interesting part of my construction is the sleeve bindings. I bought Vogue 1435, the new Tom and Linda Platt dress and jacket (it's in the queue, btw) and I was reading the instructions. For the jacket they have you bind the edges of the sleeve openings. I really liked the technique and thought I should add it to the construction of my dresses especially since I prefer unlined sleeves.

So I used the rayon seam binding that I normally use for hems to bind the sleeves. First, I serged the seams close to the stitching line. Then I folded the seam binding in half over the seam and machine stitched it on. However, after pressing I didn't like the way it covered the seam. So for the second armhole, I hand stitched it down. I liked that coverage better. Now I really should take the first one out but honestly it's not bad enough to take out. Though I will be hand stitching the binding down in the future.

Otherwise, I have nothing new to say about the construction of the dress. Any other pertinent information is contained in the original posts.

The theme of this dress is fit, fit and more fit. I did a lot of trying the dress on and then ripping out seams and resewing them. I think this is going to be a reoccurring theme throughout my sewing this year especially if I lose any more weight.

Here are the pics of me wearing the dress:

Jacket made in 2010 - Simplicity 2958

Conclusion ~
This dress fits looser than my original version which was a little tight on me. I will probably end up taking in the side and front seams next fall if I continue to lose more weight but it works for right now.

BTW, my shoes are by Tahari. I bought them two years ago and wore them once in real life and once on the blog...my feet were just too fat to wear them comfortably...and I paid too much for them to give them away. Fast forward two years and they now fit comfortably again. They're a little higher than what I've been wearing but I will add some comfort pads to them. Okay this benefit of losing weight I can get with cause I have some amazing shoes sitting in boxes waiting to be worn!

Next up is a "Throw Back Thursday" outfit. As I was checking the closet for wearable garments, I tried on this dress and couldn't believe it fit again. So I will be sharing it next. Again...thank goodness I couldn't give it away!

...Miss Sammy was visiting for the day and her Mom took some amazing pictures of her. Here is just one...