Prof. R. and I are big time Valentine’s Day
celebrators. I usually receive a bouquet
of flowers during the day, and Prof. R. makes a reservation at a fancy
restaurant for dinner. Of course, I
have to make something new for our special dinner, and this is the dress for Valentine’s Day 2016 - Butterick 6582, View B (which started as View A, then became bodice of View C with bows from View A, then finally View B):
I really like this pattern with one exception. The bodice for view A creates a seam rather
than the surplice or faux wrap neckline.
However, this can be easily remedied by using the bodice pattern pieces
for view C the full-skirted version. Once
I figured this out and re-cut the bodice pieces the rest was a fairly simple sew.
Since I was doing most of the sewing during the day on
February 14th, naturally, I didn’t have time to finish and attach the
bows. I attached them later that week but found
I preferred the dress sin bows. Once
attached, the bows just stuck straight up, giving me little "wings" on my
shoulders. Maybe I just used interfacing
that was too stiff, although I’m not sure. I do plan to make the full-skirted version at
some point and will experiment with fabric and interfacing to
see if I get a result I like. One
thought I had is just to make them smaller.
We’ll see…
The fabric is from Fabric Outlet on Mission St. in San
Francisco. I purchased it when I was in
SF just before Christmas. It’s polyester
brocade that washes and handles very well, with a few precautions (no going back to SF for more fabric if I
botched it up). First, I
washed it by machine in a mesh bag but didn’t put it in the dryer. Then, before laying out the fabric for cutting, I filed my nails and kept my nail file on hand (a nail file lives in my sewing supply bin with my marking pencils and pens) throughout construction. So far, the fabric has remained snag free!
My little bracelet is a refashion from a bow on elastic that
was stretched around the vase in the Valentine’s floral arrangement Prof. R.
sent to me the first year we were married.
It’s so cute, and I’ve kept it on hand thinking I could use it for
something. It only took me 5 years to figure I could simply shorten the elastic and make a little bracelet out
of it!
Hasta pronto!
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