I sat on the sidelines during Julia's Mad Men challenge and Tilly's OWOP in fear that it would be too much and I would never finish in time. But when Megan Nielsen announced the sew-along for her Darling Ranges dress, I thought this would be a good chance to tackle a dress I'd been wanting to make for a while anyway. I had started sewing separates because I wear them more, but I'm definitely going to want some nice summery dresses!
I ordered my pattern and picked out this Anna Maria Horner print because Fabric.com is having a pretty awesome sale on some designer voile. I had been looking for another print from her line, but since I need 3 yards and this stuff normally retails for $15/yard my wallet did the decision making for me.
I also bought a yard each of this pretty floral voile and an Amy Butler printed voile on sale. They're soooo soft! I honestly just want to sleep in a bed of this fabric - it feels amazing. And I really love that fabric designers who normally only do quilting fabrics are beginning to open up to some apparel weights. I'm hoping this continues - I have major quilting fabric envy. Damn quilters getting all the pretty fabrics! Not fair.
Even if you aren't planning to make up a Darling Ranges dress, go check out the tutorials Megan posted this past week. She covered how to do a full bust and small bust adjustment, which I found really helpful and easy to follow.
I wound up doing some major adjustments to my bodice.
After doing a small bust adjustment and pin fitting, I found the dart just looked really weird. It's short and way off to the side so that it points out far to the outside of my boob. Not attractive. So I lengthened the dart, pinned again, then raised it just a bit. Fits great now!
After seeing the Hunger Games, like a lot of sewists, I got inspired by the blue dress Katniss wears at the reaping. It looks very similar to the Darling Ranges, but has this nice ruching detail just below the shoulders:
So I decided to do something like this on my dress. I created an extra seam about 2" below the shoulders and used the slash and spread method to create room for gathers:
I'm planning to just gather below the seam, leaving the top part as it is. I've never done anything like this before so I hope it works out!
Anyone else participating (or thinking about it)?Labels: darling ranges, planning, sewing
