Sound of Music Curtain Dress

In some of that aforementioned fabric, I found a bunch of this crazy 70s floral pattern. It looked like curtain fabric or something, so I naturally thought, "The hills are alive!". . .and then. . ."Dress!"

This is it:

I made it from a free dress pattern found here: Coffee Date Dress in a pretty awesome sewing website called "burdastyle.com." What I love about this pattern is that it prints out over like...30 pages or something, but then you get to have fun and put it all together like a puzzle. . .but with tape. It's a great spring-board pattern--especially for free; however, I did notice that some of the pieces needed some major tweaking, but I think that's owing to the fact that scanners and printers and everything aren't calibrated the same, and not the designer's fault. Also, the pattern comes in several sizes. You measure yourself and then cut out the pattern according to your measurments. (*Notice* The bodice is really high-waisted.)

Okay, so I really only followed that pattern in the bodice region. I made my own skirt, simply because if you look at the pattern on that link again, you'll see that the skirt is A-line, meaning it's much thinner at the top and has a full hemline. However, if you notice the print in my dress, you will see definite lines that can't be avoided, and doing an A-line skirt would have thrown the print all out of whack, so I simply just used two big rectangles and gathered the tops of them. Hopefully, this will make more sense in the following pictures.

Incidentally, this isn't so much a step-by-step site as it is "Look what I did. Does it give you any ideas?" site.

This is the front. See what I mean about the lines of print on the skirt? If I'd done the A-line thing, I would have had to cut diagonally across the print once I got to the outer hips. That would have looked weird--trust me. Instead, I just played with the lines in the print and almost used them as  guides to know where to sew.

Notice how I made the lines go out diagonally from the waist to the shoulders. Those lines help add shoulders to a person who has none (me!) and detracts from full hips. Also, I put a horizontal line down the middle of the skirt to draw the eye down from the shoulders to a thin line. It's like a trick that magically makes you think I'm more proportionate than I am. Mwuuhahahaha....

Here is the back. You may notice there are more lines in the print on the back of the skirt. That's because baby got back, and I put a little extra material on that side to help everything hang properly.

If you see here in the front, I am pointing to only two gathers.

Here in the back, I put four. (A little bit more material). Don't you hate when dresses hang higher in the back and don't leave room for your butt? I sure do. It's like. . ."Listen, Clothing Designers! We can't all be shaped like men with boobs!"

This is how I darted the front. I just pulled the line of print over enough to give the bust shape. It almost looks reminiscent of lederhosen!

This is a back dart.

To make the torso hang a little lower, I cut out a line of the print by itself and attached it horizontally like a belt. As you can see from the inside, adding that portion gave an inch of extra torso length. I double-sewed it top and bottom to make sure the whole dress would hold up in the mid-region.

I attached a side zipper instead of a back one because it's easier to zip once it's on. However, can you see how small that zipper is? It's like 6 inches tops. That's a freakin' small zipper for a whole dress. In the midst of all the grandma fabric, there was a big bag of zippers. Somehow, all forty zillion of them are this exact short length! However, my goal is to design a bunch of clothes using just what I have inherited and nothing more. So. . .tiny zippers it is!

You can see I picked an interesting flower for the front, but didn't place it anywhere embarrassing. Check these things when you are pinning your pattern to the fabric before you even start cutting.

From the side.

See what I mean about it not riding up in the back? Even with my arms up, it stays the same length all around. Also, if you do pleat-style gathers instead of basting, the gathers will lie more flatly. 

This dress kinda makes me wish I could yodel.