The Audrey Hepburn Dress - Fabulous Frocks The Little Black Dress Book

I'm really struggling to find time for blogging at the moment. Maybe because I'm still trying to get into the swing of things after Rikki had so much time off?

Anyway this dress was sewn during Rikkis massive stint of time off [Who said collecting your holidays was a bad idea eh?] As much as I love him I had reached the point where I was like "GO TO YOUR MUMS FOR A BIT I'M SICK OF YOUR FACE!!!"

I wasn't actually sick of his face, I actually quite like his face but I was absolutely gagging to get some sewing done. Luckily I had already traced and cut out the pattern for the Audrey Hepburn dress from the Little Black dress book by Dolin Bliss O'shea which I mentioned in a previous post.

The pattern suggests using a taffeta or duchess satin, but even I thought that might be a bit "extra" for the school run. So I opted to use a black linen that I got in the abakhans fill a bag sale. I am so glad I chose to use the linen as the dress is beautifully lightweight and it presses like a dream 

The only issue with the black is that it doesn't photograph very well so you can't see the princess seams or the panels of the skirt. 

Speaking of the skirt its made up of 6 panels. Which means its a full circle skirt but without the whole faff of trying to cut a circle out of a regular sized piece of fabric. The panels mean that you can sort of jig saw everything in and you don't feel like your using or wasting loads of fabric.

I took a lot of care to try and make this dress as perfect as possible. I lined the bodice in a pink cotton [I'd have used black but I didn't have any]. Made sure to trim and grade all of my seams and press everything nicely. 

I also interfaced the seam allowances of the back seam where the zip goes [Its meant to be a side zip but SIDE ZIPS EURGH!] Basically I fused a line of interfacing on both sides of the centre back seam and then I inserted the zip. It just gives the zip some stability and stopped it waving or puckering.

The only issue I had with the fit was this bit of gaping in the front? I'm not sure what it's called? Maybe a hollow chest? Anyway I've altered the pattern piece now so it doesn't happen again and luckily it doesn't affect this version too badly.

The only other thing I did was to leave the skirt to hang over night before I hemmed it. I'm really glad I did because when I looked at it, it didn't look super wonky but when I measured it and trimmed it was! I hemmed the skirt by hand.

All in all I LOVE this dress and can definitely see myself making more! I love the high neckline which is weird for me because I'm more of a cleavage girl! 

Summary! 

Pattern - Audrey dress , little black dress book

Size - small

Fabric - Abakhans 

Sewn on - janome 

In other news! 

My sewing box was in much need of repair so Rikki has fixed the bits that need fixing and I'm currently painting it! 

Much love

Frankie 

Xxx