Saturday, June 19, 2010

The Honors Dress, Chapter 2...Thinking Out Loud

Three years ago, I made a White Eyelet dress for the Flute Player's Honor Stars Ceremony. Now, she's completed all the requirements to graduate from the Friends Club (middle school girls) and, guess what, she needs another white dress. She'll be participating in a ceremony at the state level, so we have to meet specific restrictions about the dress... dressy but not formal, no strapless or spaghetti straps, no low necklines, no miniskirts, etc. And white.

My hope was her dressy pink dress from last winter would still fit close enough that I could just make some minor adjustments and use that pattern; she put it on early this week and it is not just a little too small, it is WAY too small. I'd be starting from scratch on that one...although it does have up to size 14 in the envelope, and the pink dress was basically a 10 with a bunch of length added. So, maybe we could make a 14 work with a slight FBA and a bunch of length added...

The Princess scoffed at us, saying, 'There's white dresses on sale at the mall! Just go find her one!' So, Thursday we did a little snoop shopping and we found three dresses that fit the requirements and were on sale for $50 for her to try on. Not one really worked for one reason or another. The one she liked best was apparently sold out of anything smaller than a size 5, which was too big, not to mention the cut out in the back would've presented a problem with her underpinnings (and she noted that the thread holding the back button was pulling out). The second one was cute, but needed a belt and the black one that came with the dress really wouldn't work for the honors ceremony. It fit well through the hips but was a wee bit too big in the bust to my eye, but close enough. She didn't like the belt and felt it was too short (it was above her knee). The third dress was a knit lace peasant-style dress...needed a couple of teeny darts in the neckline to fit perfect, but it looked like a nightgown to me. It *definitely* was overpriced at $50...the other two dresses had several details, such as tucks and welt pockets; that one was just a pull-over dress made from stretch lace and matte jersey. $15, maybe, $50....no way.

But she came away with at least some idea of what she wanted...or didn't want. She wanted a dress similar to the first, which had a border eyelet skirt.

No border eyelet to be had at Hancock's. Bummer.

Then she decided she wanted a tea-length dress, similar to her masqureade dress...which, unfortunately, is strapless. After a couple of days of discussion, I decided I'd just try to morph the pink dress pattern and the purple dress pattern and see if I could come up with something akin to what she had in mind.

Then, in that 'I'm almost but not quite awake' moment this morning, I remembered that I had Vogue 7845 somewhere about. I found it in a stack of 'outgrown patterns', as the envelope I have contains sizes 7 - 10. But view C...the one with the puffy sleeves and the little bows...is just dead on what she wants.

Now I've got to decide if I want to try and grade the 10 up to fit, or if I should just go get the 12-14-16 envelope. Vogue patterns won't be on sale until June 30... a little late for me.

I'm thinking the 10 bucks for the pattern at the regular discount would be worth it. All I'd need to do was a small FBA and add a bit of length above the waist and I think she'd be good.

Or, maybe I could just grade the size 10 sleeve up and put it onto the Simplicity dress....hm....

Decisions, decisions, decisions....

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