Sunday, September 5, 2010

The Coloured Sugar Party Dress: Simplicity 2360

So, this marks the first in my birthday weekend dress montage!

This dress was for my birthday party last night - we went to a very beautiful restaurant called Rice Queen on Smith Street in Fitzroy, and I had lots of fun. There was a jazz band playing that were persuaded to play a jazz/funk version of happy birthday!


The dress is made from this pattern:


And I love it! It is made from a Mad Cortes satin silk called "Coloured Sugar" from Tessuti. I splurged a bit on the fabric, but was lucky that it had been reduced by 30%.

Most of the pattern is easy to make. The bodice has princess seams and is easy to construct, as is the skirt, which is just two pieces of fabric. The neckline and armholes are finished in bias binding - I used self-made binding (obviously :-)

Those little ruffles did my head in though. Doing a neat narrow hem on them ruined my patience, and I had to make the right side ruffle 3 times before I was happy. Lucky I had a bit of extra fabric.

The ruffles for the back and front are joined together as one piece.


The ruffles then constitute the sleeves - the dress itself is a basic sleeveless bodice.



I did make a few minor changes. I omitted the pockets. I also did not put the elastic in the waist - I thought it might make the silk sit a little funny. To compensate for no elastic, I made an extra long belt that I could wrap around my waist twice to cinch it in:


I got so many nice compliments from people for my dress. I also got asked to make one for a few people - that is always a good way of knowing that I've done a good job on a garment!

I think I'll get a lot of wear out of this. It would look cute with sandals too. 

More posts with the other two dresses coming soon - I had such a nice birthday and was lucky to receive many beautiful presents - including tickets to see the Mary Poppins musical from Michael!

P.S -- I'm adding my garments to PatternReview - check out my review of this one here

15 comments:

  1. Your dress is beautiful, I love that fabric.

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  2. Happy birthday Rachel! Lovely dress, love the ruffles :)

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  3. Happy birthday dear Rachel. I have wondering how your celebrations have been given I hear Victoria is getting so much rain. Very cute dress.

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  4. Happy Birthday! Love the dress, so pretty!

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  5. Another fabulous dress! It looks great on you!

    Happy birthday!! Mine is on the 6th - when's yours?

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  6. Happy birthday, Rachel! Compliments well deserved - it's fantastic! x

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  7. Happy Birthday!!! This dress is fantastic...I think I am in love with the fabric! It suits the dress perfectly which suits you perfectly. All in all--a fantastic birthday dress!

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  8. Thank you everyone!

    Maree - Hanging Rock was a fizz. We went there for lunch at the cafe, which was disgusting, and it was raining so much I couldn't even see the Rock. Ah well. The drive was fun.

    Sarah - mine was on the 4th. Happy B'day for the 6th!

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  9. Looks gorgeous! I can't wait to see the rest of your birthday montage. :)

    Thanks for your comments about my zip. I ended up buying some fabric for the knit top pattern that I bought last weekend, but the 'easy' 2-hour instructions have completely confused me! I might take another look tonight and see if I can get my head around it...

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  10. Happy birthday!
    The dress is really pretty, I love the fabric!

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  11. Happy birthday! What a fantastic dress! I love the 'coloured sugar' fabric, it's so pretty. Bet it's wonderfully comfortable to wear too!

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  12. This is absolutely stunning. I think this is the perfect pattern + fabric match. It's just great.

    Really kicking myself for not having picked this pattern up at the last Simplicity sale....

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  13. Awesome job. LOVE the fabric choice. I just linked to you on my blog when reviewing this pattern. thanks for the inspiration.

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