Vogue 9123 dress

I call this my kate middleton dress 😍 It was a roller coaster of emotions making this dress (oh the joy of learning new techniques). First, I was so excited to try out my 2nd vogue pattern with bell sleeves, no less. Second, the fabric itself was stunning so I had high expectations of the outcome (and I wasn’t let down in the end) but the process of making this dress was a bit challenging for me as a newbie.. more on this later, but first onto the pattern and fabric details !

Pattern: from McCall’s website: Lined dress with fitted bodice, semi-fitted skirt, three-quarter sleeves, sleeve flounce and back zipper. The pattern also has a loose-fitting, lined, collarless jacket with front button closing, side pockets and self-belt. I will definitely be making the jacket one day too!

Fabric: Rayon Challis leafy vines in Ecrue, purchased from Fabrications. This fabric checked all the boxes for me: soft and drapey, breathable yet opaque enough that didn’t require lining, beautiful vibrant floral design and a great quality.

Size: I cut a size 8 for the bodice and 10 for the skirt/hips and blended the two together.

Mods:

• made another dart in between the two front bodice darts
• shortened the skirt length by 2 inches and made the end of the skirt more tapered for a Kate Middleton effect 🙂
• Made the sleeve flounce longer so the overall length of the sleeve was more of a full length versus the original 3/4

Challenges: So what I meant by ups and downs earlier pertains to me learning the new skill of aligning the darts in the bodice and skirt. So what I did for that part was to ease stitch the bodice, pin the two pieces together, adjust the ease stitching to align the darts together and then basting.

The 1st round was not successful as I was not quite happy with how some of the darts were misaligned. Being a perfectionist, I could not let this go without getting nightmares that night so I unstitched and did this whole thing again, this time being more careful and also did a two row of basting, which worked wonderfully. See below. If this isn’t perfection, I don’t know what is… (I know, I don’t even pretend to be modest at this point)

What I will do differently next time: nothing I can think of other than what I mentioned in the challenge section above to get perfect darts again.

Conclusion: I am absolutely in awe of this fabric and pattern design combo, and I will certainly make this dress again. Maybe next time I will try out a solid colour in more of heavier fabric (maybe ponte or scuba knit?). It really is a simple yet classic piece and I highly recommend this pattern to anyone.

Thank you for reading this post 🙂 Stay tuned for my next dress!