The dress I've sewn 4 times and still haven't made....

To prove to you all that this blog isn't just about baby clothes and terror nursing tales, I wanted to do a big reveal of the dress I had been making for the Mad Men competition over at Sew Retro. This is what I've been making, a vintage pattern from an unknown pattern company and unknown date, but it looks a bit sixties to me:

I had planned to make it from a fuschia/deep purple wool crepe that I have in the stash picked up some time ago from either a garage sale or op shop. I also had picked out the perfect brooch and shoes to go with it.

But.......It is for bust 38 in., which is about 4in. too big for me so I need to grade the pattern down a few sizes. Also two pattern pieces are missing, including a gusset piece under the arm so I need to draft one somehow with hardly any pattern markings to go by, because it is one of those old style patterns with just the punched holes. And if all that isn't enough challenges, it comes with instructions that give BWOF a run for their money in terms of brevity. So all that called for a fitting muslin, which normally I loathe doing because frankly I'm a little bit lazy.

However, after four, yes four muslins all I have to show for all that time and effort are a dress that is way too big, a dress that is way too small, and two dresses that just sit wonky and wrong all made out of fugly fabric from the stash. No goldilocks moment at all (ie no just right dress!). The problem is that the pattern is asymmetrical with all those darts and funny tucking of fabric to make the belt on the skirt front on one side only, so it is not that simple to just take some extra width out evenly across the front.

So having made this four times over and still no wearable dress, or even a UFO to show for it, I'm calling it quits and am moving on. I don't have enough time, patience or sleep in reserve these days to dilly dally around on a dress that I probably won't wear for ages anyway, and it's not like I don't another pattern or 600 to choose from! In fact, I've already found another although it too needs downsizing, hmmmm maybe I'll keep looking......