A year after I stepped foot into garment sewing, I attempted (spoiler alert if you haven’t already read the title of this blog: I also succeeded) to sew a collar. My previous experience sewing collars had been fraught with tears, frustration, anger and youtubing a sewing hack to avoid creating a collar altogether. That same tearful incident was when I discovered I could use my rotary cutter to cut on curves! I could therefore cut out all my garment pattern pieces with a rotary cutter rather than scissors! That was actually a huge win for me, as most of my sewing woes started with poorly cut fabric pieces. But that’s a tale for another day, or perhaps I don’t need to foray into it at all.
Bring on the birthday dress! I fell in love with the fit and flare style of the Cardamome by Deer and Doe. The details on this dress were also appealing to me as I was at a confident beginner stage in my sewing and hoped to learn a new skill with each make. This dress features a bib, a collar, sleeve plackets, and a shirred waist! Lots of new techniques to try and elements to conquer 😀
My inspiration to use navy chambray for this dress was the denim dress my mom wore in the 90’s. She would stand up in front of the church leading worship songs wearing this dress with her snake-skin heels. I was embarrassed at the time, but wanted to recreate the look now that I was in my 30’s. Saddened to hear she no longer had the pumps, I went at the dress determined to imitate her still.
I made an almost wearable mock up of this one. I regret not finishing adding the sleeves or finishing the seams properly so I could really wear it, as the cobalt blue cotton blend was quite a lovely color on me. Actually, this was a bit of a problem as when I sewed up the sleeves on the chambray version, they were too tight at my forearm to do up the button placket :S Oh well, I can wear them undone.
