Shoe Tuesday and my Angelina Jolie Inspired Dress

Some days you just can't get a seam sewed.  I had planned on sewing for an hour or so and then writing this, but I gave up on the sewing when after three seams, I had to rip out two. Meh.  Anyway,  I have finished a dress, based on on that Ms. Jolie wore for the Berlin Film Festival.  Picture can be found here.  I used Vogue 1353 for the bodice, my trusty V2514 for the skirt, and Simplicity 2446 for the sleeves. (Ignore the wrinkles from wearing the dress all day, we usually take pictures when I get off from work.)

 

I used a dark gray wool pinstripe fabric.  I got this fabric randomly in Nizhny Novgorod (during Soviet times it was called Gorky).  I'm sure you're like where the hell is that?  It's one of the golden ring cities outside of Moscow.  It's the furthest east of all the golden ring cities, approximately four hours by high-speed rail.   It's on the Volga river, and quite picturesque.  (It's also one of the 11 host cities for the 2018 Fifa World Cup!)

 It has a rather impressive Kremlin (or gated fortress) that has several museums and you can walk on the walls.

It also has one of the cupcake domed churches.  Anyway, now why would I be fabric shopping in the middle of Russia?  I was working in Moscow for the Month of August by myself, and really wanted to get out of the city.  Due to living in a hotel, I could only really go for the day, otherwise I'd be paying for two hotel rooms, so I was looking at train tickets.  I was debating a trip to St. Petersburg (which is also 4 hours by high speed train), but I've been there many times and wanted to do something new.  So I decided on the other city that you can use high speed rail to get to, as I've never been to Nizhny.  I'm so glad I went.  It was a beautiful day, and it's such a gorgeous city.  I was walking around and saw a 50% sale sign at a fabric store, and bought as much fabric as would fit in my backpack.  I don't think any of the wool was more than $5 a meter.  

Now that I've digressed, lets look more at the dress:

It looks like I need lengthen the back darts.  The patterns came together alright. It was a little tricky, as the waists were the same size, but how they were proportioned was different.  The skirt has the seam about a half inch further back than the bodice.  I decided instead of having the side seams not match up, I would nip it in the waist a quarter inch. This seemed to work very well. 

A closer look at the front and the back.  Look at that stripe matching!  Not to shabby, eh?  If I were to make this dress again, I would figure out how to raise the neckline, especially in the back.  I don't know why I continue to make the lower neck line in the back, as it honestly makes me feel weirdly naked all day.  The other thing I would do would be to not take soo much ease out of the sleeve cap.  I overdid it and it pulled neckline open a little bit.

I still need to put buttons on the sleeves, but I didn't have the right size for self fabric buttons.  I'll have to pick some up when I'm in the States. I really like the sleeve vent though.

So I wore it with a belt.  I really wanted to wear it with my bright blue little belt, but it's MIA, so I thought I would wear it with a plaid Burberry one.  What can I say, some habits never die, I love pinstripes with plaid.

And now for a closer look at the shoes.  They are by Dollhouse.  I've had them for ages- I think 6-7 years?  You can see that I'm starting to wear them out.  :( 

We are packing out next week, so this week will be dedicated to deciding which shoes will be going in our quick shipment and which will be traveling with me on vacation.  Ugh, I hate making decisions like that- there is never enough room. Hopefully, I should have enough time to make my muslin of my next dress and cut out the dress and several tops.  On that note, back to muslining- here's a preview of my pattern hacking- I hope it works.  when doing research, I learned that you can't buy Prada dresses online?  Crazy right?  Hopefully I can figure out based on the celebrity paparazzi (see here).

And, of course, a picture of the wee one.  Oblivious to the bunny ears.  Until next time, happy sewing.