First of all, thanks to everyone who voted for me in the Colette Hawthorn Contest – I somehow ended winning second place! Such a wonderful surprise, and do check out those other winners – because, guys, I’m not worthy.
With that being said, I love this pattern and I’ve already made a second dress.
I realized that my wardrobe was severely lacking some basic, work-appropriate, tattoo-covering clothing (we are fairly casual here at my office, but I think it’s good to have a few pieces that err more on the professional side should I need it for meetings or important clients dropping in), and a Hawthorn with sleeves pretty much fits the bill here.
It’s modest and sleek without being frumpy, vintage-inspired without being costumey. Win!
I am super happy with how it turned out, however, I am NOT happy with those bust dart points. I promise you they look 1000% worse in the pictures than they do in real life – according to these photos, I have two sets of eyes D: I resewed the dart tips more times than I care to admit – lowering them, raising them, tapering them more subtly – as well as pressing the everloving fuck out of them. No dice. Like I said, they’re not as bad in real life as they look here, but now I can’t stop staring at them oh god I’m sorry.
Anyway, dart issues aside – we’ve already discussed the pattern, so today we are going to talk about the fabric!
This is organic cotton sateen, from my pals at Organic Cotton Plus (my second review for this – they liked my my first review so much, they came back for a second round :P). I’ve not had much experience with cotton sateen – most of what I’ve seen has been the sort of fabric I shy away from. Think super shiny (if you like shiny, that’s totally fine, but personally I always feel like I’m wearing a prom dress!), too much stretch, and much too stiff for my liking. This stuff is NOTHING like what I described, though. Don’t let the boobie-eyes deter you; there ain’t much shine on this fabric, other than a spectacular luster that comes from high-quality cotton and a gorgeously deep pigment.
The fabric has a great drape – it just floats and creates the most lovely folds. It’s pretty lightweight, with no stretch, which makes it ideal for this pattern. And since it’s cotton, it’s super comfortable to wear. It also wrinkles like crazy, because of the aforementioned cotton, but I’m ok with a few wrinkles – I’d rather have wrinkles than pools of sweat from polyester!
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This is a great basic if you want to make something in a solid color but feel bored with the idea of, well, solid colors.
Both the buttons and the monogram are from the flea market. I think they both add something special to the dress, while still keeping it office-appropriate.
I love the monogram! It’s actually metal, and has sharp bars at the back that pierce the fabric and bend to keep it in place. Which means it’s never coming off this dress… except to wash, I guess. I’m not sure how old it is, but it’s pretty sweet! I’ve been hoarding it for a few months now, waiting on the perfect shirtwaist backdrop.
Soo, as you can see here, I tried splitting the dart on this version, following the tutorial at the Coletterie. I’m not totally happy with how the darts turned out – they are too close together at the top (and I suspect that, while they likely aren’t 100% of my nipple-eye problems, they likely contribute to it, ugh). I didn’t realize how they looked until after I’d put the bodice front together- and cut up all my fabric. Shoulda made a muslin, shoulda woulda coulda.
Oh well!
Quick, look at this! Shiny!!
I trimmed the hem with matching rayon seam binding, and catch-stitched it down for a clean finish (and yeah, that took forrrever haha). I’m mostly including this picture because it really shows the color best. It’s so rich!
The dart points aren’t as prominent here – this is much more accurate of how they look in real life. Still… how do I fixxxx thiisssss????
I think this dress will end up getting a lot of wear this fall! I can’t wait to pair it with future Kelly Green cardigan – navy and green is one of my favorite color combinations at the moment. I better get knittin’!
LLADYBIRD 