Third time lucky: Vogue 2783 panelled dress

After having Vogue 2783 in my pattern collection for many years unused, I've now made this pattern three times in last few years. I don't know why I left it so long before I used it in the first place, because it really is a great looking dress. It's now OOP, but it is available through some Etsy and Ebay sellers.

The first version I made in 2013 (posted here) is made from a floral cotton sateen with dark blue piping. The second version I made in 2014 (posted here) is from a cotton/linen in a graphic print with white piping, and little cap sleeves. For the third version I chose to keep the cap sleeves but not to use any piping, and instead use contrasting fabrics. All three dresses look quite different don't they?

How funny that since 2013 my hair has gotten shorter and my hemlines have gotten longer!

The fabric I've used in this version is a printed cotton drill I bought late last year from Tessuti, and cotton sateen in black and white bought from The Remnant Warehouse recently (and specifically for this project). I bought two metres of the print cotton drill planning to make an entire dress from it, but I think it looks more striking mixed up in this way. Plus now I have some fabric left over to make something else since this didn't use much - bonus!

After suffering quite a bit of disappointment lately with cotton sateen (wrinkly, sagging out or losing it's dye easily), I have to say that the quality of the cotton sateen from the Remnant Warehouse is great. It's about the same price as that from Spotlight but it's much thicker, hardly wrinkled after a day of wear and didn't lose it's sheen after a wash. I don't know if it will stretch out because this isn't a fitted dress, but I bought several metres of the black intending to make some pants, so I guess I'll find out soon enough!

Construction wise there isn't too much to say - the pattern runs terribly large, but I had already made changes to the pattern from the previous two versions so I was able to sew this up quickly. Instead of piping around the neckline I used bias tape to finish the neckline and armholes, and as you can see in the photo above I used white thread on the white portion and black thread on the black portion for the topstitching - how is that for attention to detail?

The back is pretty much the same as the front in terms of fabric placement. I didn't even attempt to pattern match along the centre back seam, because I figured this print is small and busy enough that it wouldn't be noticeable:

I do like the fit on this dress, but if you are planning to make this pattern just beware you'll have to take it in a lot to get a close fit. Despite my measurements indicating I should make a size 12, I use a size 6 pattern and still have shaved a few centimetres off each pattern piece above the waist. 

I also chose not to make the matching belt, because without a waist seam I don't think it really needs to be worn with a belt. I also left off the bottom band because I would need to significantly shorten the dress and I thought it would interfere with the strong vertical lines of the dress. Keeping it simple I think is more effective with this pattern mixing instead.

So overall, I really like this dress and if you have this pattern I can highly recommend making it. But after three versions, and with so many other dress patterns in my collection I think this one may be the last.