Sunday, 22 June 2025

Pineapple progress

64 months is nowhere close to the longest time that a dress length has sat in my stash (that dubious honour goes to the anemone dress), but this project has frequently felt like The Dress That Didn’t Want To Be Made. My first plan for this fabric never felt quite right. Then I found some plain cotton which was perfect for adding some kind of contrast section, but I got distracted by another project and it was sidelined again. Not even the fact that I already had a zip of the exact length and colour required - a dressmaking miracle - could coax me into action.

Lack of materials was not the problem

But then @blossomsandwich announced that she is running her SewFruity challenge again this year, and this prompted me to finally get on with things.

The challenge

Since I last abandoned this project in 2023, I had found this image online, and decided that I wanted to make something similar, with the plain fabric on the bust.

Inspiration 2.0

However, it was impossible to find any suitable patterns. There are a few modern and repro designs for shelf dresses, but none of them have sleeves. I have Simplicity 1155 (now out of print), but not only is it sleeveless, to me it seems greatly changed from the original design. To add insult to injury, Laura Mae of Lilacs & Lace had tracked down the original pattern, and discovered that it did have a short-sleeved option!

So many questions

The whole thing was in danger of being shelved (pun intended) yet again, when I found this image.

Pierre Balmain, 1955

Here the shaped, plain, section is far more part of the overall dress shape than on the shelf dresses. It is also something which could be achieved from my original plan of using a bodice made from my Butterick 5748/Simplicity 3662 mash-up. I made a toile from some of the leftovers from my 2020 scrubs making (I've still got lots left!), without the neckline shaping on the bodice front, and set to work.

The shoulders needed flattening a little.

With the original neckline marked in yellow

Once I was happy with the fit, I put it on, and drew on the neckline I wanted. Unfortunately, black pen lines on blue fabric didn't show up well enough to trace them onto the tissue pieces. So I machine sewed over the lines with white thread. This provided a better contrast, and also a slight ridge which was easy to follow when tracing.

The new neckline

The pattern piece for the contrast section is a striking shape.

From Balmain to Batman?

I now have all my pattern pieces drawn and have started cutting out a dress. I don’t know whether I'll get it completed in time to submit it for the challenge on 30 June but at least it's, finally, on the way to being made.

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