Eiffel Tower Dresses

It’s no secret that Meg, Michelle, and I are friends and we meet up for knit nights at a local cafe.  So of course we’re always pondering and dreaming about fabric, patterns and the like.  It was very natural of us to say “Wouldn’t it be amazing to go fabric shopping in Pairs?!” as we drank our evening tea, knitting needles in hand.

I casually mentioned it to Felix that night and he giggled – and said what any good husband says at these moments.  Something along the lines of “Sure, whatever you want.  I can come too, right???”

We met again the following week or two and the conversation started to shift from dreaming about Paris to thinking about how we could pull it off and actually all go together, for real.

In all of our scheming, we found that we all wanted to make a wardrobe staple: the shirt dress.  Michelle had settled on the McCalls 6696 dress pattern and I remembered I had that one in my pinterest pattern faves.  So we just all decided to use the same pattern.

This is probably my favorite photo from our shoot.  At the time M&M didn’t realize I wasn’t jumping with them, as they were too busy smiling for the camera.  I am making my classic Liz-grumpy-face, as I am rubbish at jumping anywhere above 3 inches off the ground.

I picked my fabric, a stretch cotton sateen, solely because I liked it and it matches the exact same hue of my hair.  I’m pretty certain Meg’s is from her stash as she’s been Konmari-ing her place and Michelle’s is from an Estate sale score.

Michelle made her dress first, and warned of how large the collar was, along with the bodice.  So even before I made my muslin I took off 1/2 inch from the bottom of the collar’s edge and shortened the bodice by an inch or so.

After making my muslin I reduced the gathers at the center back of the bodice – let’s just say significantly (at least 1″ – most likely more).  It was just way too poofy for my thick cotton sateen – so I converted the gathers to one box pleat.

I also have to admit, this was my very first collar stand.  I’ve always shied away from patterns and blouses calling for a collar stand.  I’m not sure why I was nervous about it, but I just followed the instructions and it came out perfectly.

I didn’t even think about pattern placement when I was doing the bodice – but the white section that is on my right… ahem… bodice is less than ideal.  Perhaps you didn’t notice it before, but I’m sorry, that’s probably all you’re going to notice now that I’ve pointed it out.

Friendly dogs in the park; I love that frenchie in the back getting his ear scratch on.

One of the things I did not like about this pattern is that it’s impossible to make changes without ripping out the entire bodice.  The waistband goes all the way around, so you have to unpick the front button band, unpick the waistband, then adjust the side seams and possibly the waistband length.

If I make this again, I’m going to have to modify the waistband piece so that I have side seams in it.  My weight fluctuates too much to not have a place to make adjustment dresses.  The only way this works is that the cotton sateen has some stretch in it so it expands and contracts as I ate my daily-Parisian macaron.

Felix & me.

It’s been a while since Felix has been shared on here – but doesn’t he look nice in his new clothes?!  But then again, I’m pretty biased.  Oftentimes, Felix or I am taking pictures of something or one another, but we never seem to get ‘couples’ shots, so it was nice to have our picture taken together.

This is my favorite one with Meg & Josh:

And Michelle & Mike:

As I’m getting back in the swing of blogging, I’ll have some more to share with you soon about Paris and what I’ve been up to these past few months.

Cheers!

In: Sewing

Tags: LizMegMichelleCollective McCalls 6696 Paris