St. Patrick's Day 2017

Hello!  I love St. Patrick's Day!  Professor R. and I had a great party on Friday night.  At least I think it was great since guests didn't leave until after 3:00 AM!  You can never predict how a party will turn out, but we agreed that this was one of our funnest.  Yesterday was spent on recovery, lots of recovery and clean-up.  Of course, I made a new dress just for the event.

The pattern used was the Sewaholic Cambie which I modified to make strapless (I'm not really counting the ribbon as a strap) with a circle skirt.  With this make, I finally executed on something I've been wanting to do since I first made this pattern last year.  The bodice was such a great fit on me, I was hoping that it would work in a strapless version, and it did.

Here I am at the party with one of my favorite guests:

Construction-wise, I opted out of boning in the bodice - I just didn't have the time (read that as lazy) - but I did interface the bodice pieces and sewed in stay tape around the top edge.  It's also fully lined, even the skirt.  I tried on the basted dress with my pink crinoline petticoat underneath, and it definitely showed, so the lining helped eliminate the pink coloring coming through the skirt.

To create a strapless bodice, I just cut the back of the pattern straight across at the underarm, and sewed it all together as per the instructions - minus the sleeves.

The circle skirt is the skirt from Simplicity 1651 (OOP), which I have used numerous times before.  It's just the right amount of circle and swirl.

I was inspired by this dress on Pinterest:

In my inspiration photo, it appears that the green trellis of flowers was woven into the dress.  I tried putting strips of the clover fabric from top to bottom, but it just looked too weird.  In the end, I opted for a sash with a purchased faux carnation to accent.

And of course, I retained the pockets!

All in all, this was a fairly easy and fun make - just a good no fuss all around great sew.  I'd like to explore making this again as a strapless dress in a floral or striped fabric for summer.  It'll have to wait though as I still have some winter sewing to complete!

Hasta pronto!