The internet Dress

This dress is called the internet dress because I downloaded the pattern off the internet. Just because I am nice, here is the link.

It was the first dress I made all by myself. I had worked on stuff with Heather a lot but wanted to make something that was wearable without aid, so I worked on this one from start to finish alone. I chose the brown and pink polka dots because I wanted black and pink and they didn’t have any (has anyone else noticed how hard this combo is to find?). The dress was from a historical society and most importantly it was free.

The first attempt was good. It was sewn on a larger stitch than I would use now so it made it less hardy than the other ones I have. It was also made before I knew about my waist being high. In fact, it is the reason I know that my waist is higher than normal peoples. This version sits quite low for me but the subsequent version has the adjustment on it.

The dress has a bow on the back which I thought looked a bit blech, so I left it out. Also I was not really good enough to try and create it. I didn’t really know what I was doing. But I sewed it a second time and left the bow out of that because of the not liking factor.

So the problems with this dress is that the section that goes under the bust and hits the waist is too long and so it bunches in a funny way. The zipper makes it funny also. I could probably unpick and fix it now but I don’t care too much. I ended up making a belt to compensate it which works fine even though the pattern has no belt.

The second attempt was made with a bright pink floral cotton. This time I spent AGES fitting that small section to my body. It fits quite well now. I put some pink ribbon around the top and hem as a little bit of decoration. It is a great picnic dress. This one does not need a belt. The skirt is not 100% straight on the bodice which makes it look a little odd but I was still getting into the swing of the tricks of the trade at the time.

I have since made a THIRD version of this dress, which included some pattern changes, including changing the zipper to be at the side, dropping the neckline and changing the way the skirt panels were done to accommodate the new side zip. It was done for Heathers Birthday last year where 3 of us went as 1950’s Hogwarts pupils. I got told I should wear mine out as normal clothes but I don’t know about that. The picture of this dress (and the other two house dresses) can be found here.