I know ya'll have seen this picture, and I know that because I used in on my other "Mama Mia!" post. And you might be asking, "Why Rachel would you use this picture, and title as second time?" To which I would respond. Uh, because the little blue dress you see to the far left, is this weeks dress!
I know in the first post of this title I said, 'I wish I had a copy of this pattern' to which I will declare once again I wish I had a copy of this pattern, and will go a step further and say I wish Simplicity would re-print this pattern as it is a really wonderful pattern, as you will shortly see.
So my mother does have a copy, she has an original, not a reprint, and she has had it since the 70's it's not one that was picked up in a thrift store. When I was in high school and still learning how to sew this was one of my early projects. I remember loving the dress, at this time I was in a polka dot phase where I was really digging that print and my mom had this really pretty light blue fabric with blue polka dots on it, and she let me use it to make this pattern. like I said I was learning to sew, and she was teaching me how to read patterns at the time.
This pattern is a junior sized pattern and my mothers copy was to small for me (even though I was junior sized at the time) so this was my first attempt EVER at grading a pattern (before I knew what grading was or how to do it.) what did I do? Well I sized the whole thing up by a 1/2 in. Or at least that was what I meant :/ I forgot to size up the straps, which left a weird gaping where the straps meet the cups. Which causes the cups to pull away from the body at the neck and sides, as you can see in the picture above. Fortunately at the time I had a much smaller bust (A cup) at the time it wasn't as noticeable as it is now in my current C cup state.
Overall the grading was a success and even at a size too small the cut is still very flattering on me.
This dress is over ten years old, it's a size to small as I already mentioned, the seams were never finished because I was still learning to sew when I made this and I didn't know how to finish seams yet, and the neckline as the imperfections I described. But I will never part with this dress. I love this dress.
It's more then just the color, the pattern, the cut.This dress is a part of my history. Early sewing projects like this, there very special, they're important. It was really fun to pull it out after all these years, you know it's been I don't know how long since I even tried to squeeze into it. You can probably tell in these pictures how happy I am. Clothes are supposed to be an experience, not just something you wear but something you WEAR if that makes sense.
Putting this dress on it makes me think of my mom, it makes me think of all the work we put in together, all the techniques she showed me, I'm not sure if I put that zipper in, or she put it in for me. This dress also reminds me of how much I love sewing. Sometimes you need that right? To remember why you love the things that you love, my mother she's a seamstress, an amazing one. And my grandmother she was also a seamstress, an amazing one. And now I'm a seamstress, and I try to be an amazing one. Simple little dresses like this, they bring that out.
So you know, this week was a short one, and super late coming at you. And it was really more reminiscing than anything. But that's really all I have to say about this dress, its a great dress, I like it, I'm happy.
Thank you for reading this weeks post! Feel free to follow me on social media Instagram is @MadsenCreations, Facebook Madsen Creations by Rachel Madsen, and Twitter Rachieface89 I look forward to hearing from you there! Also if you get a chance go check out my shop and purchase yourself a little sometin, sometin so I can quite my day job and do this full time! As always, pics posted below.