The Swing Dress and Me Made June

Blogger went a little crazy this week... One post disappeared on me, it's back but the comments are not restored yet. And something happened to my categories. So if something's looking a bit strange here, don't worry, it will soon be fixed!

This past Friday a friend of mine defended his paper and passed. Congratulations Henrik! For the evening's celebratory party, I wore my newly finished Swing Dress. Ta-da!

This is me and Sofie, both wearing our own creations. She made her dress out of a traditional russian shawl, so beautiful!


Sewing the Swing Dress was a lot of fun, esp once I got the pattern finished. Me and a friend did buy the pattern for the sewalong, but I used it more as a guide for in what general direction I should change my blockpattern. I'm quite pleased with the result, but before next time (and I will def use this pattern again!) I need to fine-tune the pattern some, plus I realised too late that even after all my fitting there's still some issues where the front meets the midriff-section. Probably this is due to the neckline being on the bias, and it stretched during pressing and handling. I did compensate some, but not eunough. Anyway, it might not be perfect, but I like it for a thin summer day-dress!
Here's some detail close-ups:

Front is gathered to shoulder yoke and midriff-piece, as the "original" pattern. Sleeves are however much shorter, just set-in cap-sleeves.

The skirt I made totally different, I chosed to make a half circle skirt pattern. This gives the dress a 50s feel (esp when combined with the cap-sleeves) than the original pattern, which is more of a 40s dress. I love the 40s, but has realised that the 50s look better on me. *Sigh* The grass is always greener on the other side, right? The greenest grass for me is the second half of the 30s, which I can't wear without some hard-core underwear. So of course I absoloutly adore it! =)
Sorry for the rambling, back to the dress...

The back is almost reversed from the Swing dress pattern, as it gathers to the yoke and is fitted to the waist. I figured it would balance the front better then, thus preventing the side seam to wander around.

I ran out of time and seam-allowance so instead of a lapped zipper I inserted an invisible. It's such a thin fabric, I doubt the weaker zipper will be a problem, and it does look good, I think.
So there you go! I can't believe I finished a dress in under two weeks. Tailoing the coat this winter really has turned around my time-perspective on sewing! Now I feel less bad about not finishing the coat before spring; it really was just that much more work than a dress.

This dress will be great for June, but I need to sew some more... as I've decided to sign up to Me Made June! I'm so excited, I've wanted to join one of Zoe's wear-what-you've-made challenges for well over a year, but haven't felt that I have enough things ready. I've set the bar very low for this first time, just one handmade piece per day. Now, I already wear that quite often, so the challenge will be to pull out the things I usually skip over, and to compose outfits worth documenting each day. I'm horrible at "this skirt works with that top and that cardigan. Ok, I'm done.", thus repeating my outfits all the time (made even easier by not working at the same place all the time). I want to make at least one more dress and two blouses for the challenge, so better get sewing, right? =)

Anyone else who's joining Me Made June?

Love, Erika