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