A sewing miss: Vogue 8685

You can't win 'em all. A wadder every now and then is inevitable, especially if you don't make a fitting toile! This dress definitely falls within the category of a not so great outcome, but hey it's only fabric and a bit of time that's been lost and right now I have lots of both.

Actually this dress took quite a lot of time to finish and it's only because of refusal to make any new UFOs that I finished this at all. And looking at these photos of the finished dress I'm probably going to refashion into a skirt when I get over the frustration of this pattern.

So this pattern is Vogue 8685 which is now OOP but has 34 positive reviews over on Pattern Review. Being a pear shaped, my waist is relatively narrow compared to my hips so I liked the focus of this pattern on the midriff.

However, the midriff band and the curved yoke was just too much for my figure - it was too tight around the hip and too loose on the top which just looked terrible. Here is the first iteration of the dress made according to the pattern:

So out came the unpicker and I adjusted the pattern pieces by letting out and taking in the seam where needed to make it fit. But then the curved yoke just looked droopy and the seam line finished at my widest part which just emphasised my saddlebag thighs. No photos of this stage because I was really annoyed with it.

In a last ditch effort to prevent this becoming a UFO, I decided to take off the curved yoke and just have the midriff waistband piece. I had to fuss around a bit with the skirt to make it fit by adding some pleats to the front and cutting out some excess from the back and then re-sew the invisible zip matching the seam lines again. So now it's finished.....but it's not great.

The proportions are all off because that waistband sits too high, there is too much fabric under my bust which makes it look floofy and those pleats I added to the skirt just emphasise a round tummy. And those sleeves! Those sleeves are way too big and way too long but I could face more re-sewing on this project, so instead I added elastic to the cuff to make it look a bit like a bell sleeve. But actually they just look too big.

This fabric is a really lovely deep plum crepe that I picked up for a bargain from the Sewing Basket, a charity run fabric and craft store selling donated items. I am deeply sad that I used this lovely fabric on this catastrophe, but hopefully I can still give it a life as a skirt eventually.

Given the glowing reviews on Pattern Review, I think this wadder is all about me and not the pattern so if you have this pattern and were thinking of using don't be put off by my awful outcome. But I do recommend making a muslin and possibly using a stretch fabric. And if it doesn't work out, well it's all experience for life's rich tapestry isn't it?