I'm not sure if this is a success or not. Part of me likes it and the other part of me thinks this isn't quite the right velvet. Its a bit thin and I;m not sure it has the weight that this wrap dress needs.
Anyway from the top! The pattern is the gbsb wrap dress from the second book. I'd already made it in a stretch poly knit and immediately afterwards I wanted to make one in velvet.
This velvet was from abakhans and cost £8.40. I had originally wanted something in a dark teal or more of a burgandy colour but couldn't find anything so I picked this up instead. Its more of a raspberry colour than the pictures show.
I sewed up most of the seams on my overlocker only using my regular machine to stitch the sleeve hems and to hem the outer edge of the dress.
I used a twin needle for all the hems and even managed to find two spools of thread the right colour. But my god was it a pain in the bum! The threads kept twisting and snapping and jumping into one needle it was more trouble than it was worth and I cursed myself for not using a simple zigzag.
I also Made one small change from the instructions, instead of leaving a gap in the side seam for the ties I simply made a button hole. It seems to be a lot more secure and looks a lot neater.
The only other thing that sucks about this dress is that I cut it out the wrong way so the pile of the fabric is the wrong way up. So basically if you want to stroke the velvet you have to stroke down to up instead of stroking down!
All in all I'd say I'm about 80% happy with it, I think it probably looks a bit nicer than in the pictures but I definitely want to make another velvet one hopefully using a slightly richer velvet. The construction is good and I still love this style.
I'm wore it for valentines day, we didn't do anything particularly special just exchanged gifts in the morning and then I cooked us a tea later on. Its a darn sight better than last year though where we didn't even celebrate because we were saving for the wedding!
Much Love
Frankie
xxx
