Audrey Dress Variation in Stuart Hillard Sewing Bee Fabric

After I made my first dress from the "fabulous frocks the little black dress book" I knew I was going to be making more versions. In particular I wanted to make the Audrey variation because it seemed like a perfect little dress. 

To make the variation you pair it with another one of the skirts from the book and you lower the neckline. I also took two cm's out of the front neckline to stop the gaping issues that I was having last time. 

I decided to make it in this sewing print cotton by Stuart Hillard for the Craft cotton company. I thought the sewing print would make a perfect dress for going to the CHSI stitches show in Birmingham. 

Which also led me to choosing this pattern. You see last year I wore this dress which I love! But at the show I always end up carrying my handbag and at least two bags for life and an extra bag [legit the extra bag just contains snacks because Frankie loves a snack!] Anyway all of these bags left me with one lil problem last year.

They worked together and somehow managed to ruck up the skirt of the dress enough to flash my knickers. Yep that's right, last year I spent ten minutes walking around with a good portion of my bum out. 

I was MORTIFIED! Especially seem as this is the second time this has happened to me in public, the first time was at the Goodwood revival and luckily a woman chased me down and let me know.

Anyway after I showed my pants last year I spent the whole show worrying it would happen again and fiddling with my dress. So this year I decided to cut out the worry and wear a pencil dress so that it couldn't ride up. 

Okay so construction wise the bodice is fully lined in some blue cotton I had lying around. The skirt isn't lined but I did finish my seams with an extra row of stitching. In fact overall I was really careful in my construction of this dress and the finishing of the seams.

I think the front and back seams are really flattering but its a pain trying to find the right bra. You need something that will "fill" the princess seam but that will still give you a natural shape. The other bra issue is that the straps show. I have no idea how to fix that.... I mean I could go for a strapless bra but EURGH strapless bras. 

I hate strapless bras, they are the work of the devil. So if you know how I can fix it let me know!

The bottom of the skirt has a vent. Which I normally avoid because I'm always worried that it will split right up the back seam. 

However I was wearing one of my old, non vented pencil skirts a few weeks ago and my stride was tiny, like I couldn't keep up with Rikki on the walk to school and I ended up doing some sort of waddle, skip, hop sort of walk. Which Rikki thought was hilarious but it made me vow to put vents in all of my future pencil skirts. 

Speaking of the pencil skirt I wish it was a bit more tapered towards the knee as it looks a bit boxy. I think a taper would look a bit more chic and sexy.

I used a pink metal zip in the back because who doesn't love a pop of colour?

I also wish the front of the skirt has two sets of darts rather than just one dart per side. The GBSB pencil skirt that I make has two darts per side and I think it works better with my shape. The back of this dress has double darts and fits really nicely. 

I think because of the busy print it looks much better belted. 

Size wise I cut a size small, which is the size I corresponded with in the chart. The fit is really good straight out of ht bag I just had to take some fabric out of the centre front. 

I do hate the small, medium and large type of sizing though. But I think that's more of a personal thing because I hate it in RTW as well!

All in all I really love this dress and thinking about it I don't have many figure hugging woven dresses in my wardrobe so I think I'll have to make a few more! 

In other news! 

We've got snow , but no snow day! Yep we walked to school this morning and I'm still cold from it!

I've got a few exciting projects coming up that I can;t wait to share! 

I've got about five things to photograph BUT the idea of taking my clothes off right now makes me want to cry. 

I've also got some fun vlogs planned and a lot of sewing I want to do. Sometimes their just aren't enough hours in the day! 

What are you working on?

Frankie 

xxx