Yippee! I love this dress! And good thing I added built-in shorts so I can jump around in public like this! (Does that make this a Drort? A Drooter?)

This is Vogue 1449, a Rebecca Taylor mini dress. I bought the pattern during a bout of nostalgia for a similar vintage garment I used to have, which I sketched below. It was a blue romper that looked like a dress because of four flaps placed over top of the shorts. It had blue and white gingham trim and embroidered flowers on the flaps. My mother’s friend Stella gave it to me around 1989 and told me she used to wear it in the 60s. I used to wear it to my corporate summer job — heaven knows what my coworkers must’ve thought of this strange 20-year old wearing a vintage romper of all things.

Back to Vogue 1449…there’s lots of great detail in this dress, including a v-shape seam at the bust and pleats on the skirt.

This is the first time I tried sewing an invisible zipper. I generally avoid sewing garments that need fasteners like the plague — hence my predilection for knitwear — thinking an invisible zipper sounded like something very difficult to do. It wasn’t! Of course, I had Dilys from Sew Be It Studio guiding me. I sewed this dress during the 5-week, once-a-week course I took there. It wasn’t so much a course as it was ‘guided sewing’…we just worked on projects and Dilys was there to help us and show us how to do anything we weren’t sure of.

I probably would never have sewn this dress if it wasn’t for a mix-up with Sew Be It: I emailed them to ask if I needed to prepare anything before the class started and they said no. However, when I showed up for the first class Dilys asked me if I brought my pattern and fabric. The other students both had a pattern for a classic button shirt and chambray fabric at the ready. Panicked, (and worried they might force me to sew a chambray button-up shirt) I explained what I had been told, but I did happen to have this pattern in my purse because it had just arrived in the mail that day. Long story short, I picked some floral stretch cotton and a coordinating grey cotton broadcloth from Sew Be It’s fabric store in a hurry and got started. I’m glad it happened this way. I’m sure I would’ve spent weeks agonizing over just the right fabric, visiting multiple stores to find the right one. This way, I had to make a decision right away and choose from what was on hand. I might not have selected these fabrics otherwise, but what a great selection they turned out to be!

I made a few slight modifications to the pattern:

• I used contrasting fabric for the side front panels.
• I didn’t use a knit fabric for the collar band as per the pattern instructions but instead did a bias strip facing. I also cut the neck opening to be a bit lower than the pattern called for.
• I didn’t line it. These cotton fabrics I used really don’t need to be lined.
• I drafted and attached simple shorts underneath the skirt so I don’t have to worry about being particularly ladylike when I wear this. 😛

Now here’s a little bonus material for you — one of the outtakes from when my long-suffering husband was trying to shoot me jumping in the air. Thought you might enjoy the hairdo! 😀