Triplets sewing challenge - collars and cuffs

Well hello and happy 2016 to you! I hope you had a pleasant festive season and new year!

The boy and I just returned from our summer holiday in Port Stephens and are back to work tomorrow! Before we left I had finished up sewing a new dress for a new sewing challenge that Allie, Sarah and I came up with. We had planned initially to post our dresses before Christmas but of course life got the better of us and we had to delay. 

Much like our first challenge the dresses had to have a common theme or pattern. We invited Sarah from Style Sixties along this time and decided to make dresses that featured some kind of contrasting collar and cuff combo. We all decided to choose our fabrics as well so hopefully there will be 3 very different looks!

For my version I had a number of patterns with this style to choose from because of my ridiculous pattern hoarding skills. I chose Butterick 4648 from the 1960's. It was designed by Mia Fonssagrives and Vicki Tiel as part of their "young designers" series. 

You can read a very comprehensive post about the two partying fashion designers over here 

The dress is designed to have a button up front which is how you get in an out of the dress. I was quite naughty however and decided to make a false button front and install a zipper at the back. It goes against everything the dress is designed to do but I was very worried that the dress might be too small at the bust one day and there would be a lot of gaping at the front and ruin the whole 60's waif look

 

I also had bought a pattern far too small - a size 12. When cutting I was sure to add lots of space to the hips and shoulders to make it a size 14 but alas I under calculated and the dress was very tight. To fix that I installed two panels along the side seams. The fabric is so busy with flowers and colours that you don't even notice the extra pieces of fabric. 

 

Once the side panels were added it became more of a tent dress then a shift dress so I decoded to go with it! To stop it looking too frumpy I made it 2cm shorter at the hem then I normally would. 

  

The button front is simply a sewn on piece of fabric with self covered buttons as it is non functional now. The cuffs are sewn much like a shirts cuff with a placket and button closure.   

The fabric was bought from Fabric.com in June last year. It is a Timeless Treasures print called "Jasmine Jacobean". The print is quite delightful with lots of flowers that look like their embroidered onto the fabric. I almost considered making the cuffs and collar match the fabric more by picking a cream colour but decided not to make it too fussy and keep it white much like I assume Allie and Sarah did! 

Be sure to check out Sarah and Allie's versions over on their blogs 

Too-daa-loo for now readers! 

Cat xo