Happy Birthday to me and the pool party dress!

It’s my 38th birthday and we had a cosy family dinner party at a restaurant right next to a pool. My dear hubby was so sweet to have gotten me this amazing 3D cake of a sewing machine! It is SO cute and I heart it to bits! It even had details of buttons, bobbins, pin cushion and needles as part of the cake decor! My lil prince said the best part of the evening for him was seeing and eating the cake 🙂

And the dress I nearly forgot to make- my birthday dress! LOL! I kept the dress in line with my resort style theme. Since my party was at a country club, I thought it went pretty well with the setting. Nonetheless, I had to totally switch the pattern and fabric choices. Instead of the simple vintage dress, I made my first designer pattern- The Rachel Comey dress (Vogue 1161).

This is a 10-piece pattern and by no means an easy dress to sew. It was definitely a blessing that I read Very Prairie’s review before embarking on the project.  The review mentioned that the pattern runs small but I bought the pattern before reading it and the largest size in the envelope was a 12, my usual size, so I took a gamble and made a size 12. I am glad I did cos the fit was fine for me. I also didn’t have the gaping neckline issue.

However, I absolutely agree that the unstitched darts at the bust aren’t my favorite look and the back bodice length is indeed a little excessive so I had to trim away the excess after joining the bodice to the midriff piece.

Thanks to the review’s warning that the dress is short, I lengthened the hem by 3″ and finished with a rolled hem. I also lined the upper back section (with the tie knot) with the shell fabric instead of the lining fabric since the review mentioned that the lining showed a little where the knot is tied. By using the same fabric on both sides solved the peeping lining issue completely.

It took me three days to finish this dress and I am happy I managed to match the triangles at the front hip section of the dress quite closely. This was the toughest part of sewing this dress and very notch dependent. Here’s the close up photo, sorry that the triangles are a little difficult to see due to the print. They are at the two sides and pointing at each other.

The fabric is an interesting Made in Japan cotton voile with white embroidery all over. A note on using embroidered fabric is that it might be useful to use a contrasting thread for sewing. This way, you won’t get confused should the seam ripper be needed. Overall, I am happy with how this difficult dress turned out and might just make another in a fabric with a simple print.

Meanwhile, I hope you are having as great a weekend as The Sew Convert! A few more party shots to end the post 🙂

My family…My parents and kids…

My brothers and sisters in-laws and all the food we eventually finished!