Exam Stress Dress
- Jaime Eray
- Mar 26, 2016
- 2 min read
So titled because I whipped this dress up while I was studying for my final Art History exam. I allowed myself 30 min study breaks every so often (too often!) and so the dress progressed in half-hour sessions. It was the shortest amount of time I ever spent on one garment start-to-finish so there must be some magic that happens within a 30 minute sewing session! I bought the polka dot fabric yonks ago with plans for a flirty summer dress, but couldn’t quite decide on which style I preferred. During my internet browsing (ahem, studying) recently, I was drooling over some vintage katjusha style dresses and finally made up my mind.
Materials: polyester cotton
cotton lining
1cm width elastic
satin ribbon
I never knew shirring could be so fun until now. I was actually loathe to insert the elastics once I had done the casings – I was too excited about my beautiful (sans a ruler) straight lines! But playing with the elastics and gathering was equally fun for a while. Am I becoming a crazy seamstress of the cat lady variety to find such things so exhilarating? The neighbour’s cat visits all the time and if I leave food out she’ll sleep on the bed… I don’t actually have a cat, sadly. However, Le boyfriend and I are considering getting a fluffy companion in the near future.
Aaaanyway, I don’t really have much to say about this dress, except that I thoroughly enjoyed watching it come to life. I made the boobies a liiiittle too big, but no-one would really know. Padded bras are useful. It’s fully lined, and I was originally going to do piping along the bust but settled on using the ribbon instead. Oh my word what a schlep to get that done evenly, I should have used a wider ribbon. The hem is just folded over double and stitched. Still playing with the idea of adding halter neck straps, but right now I love the straplessness.
There’s an awesome pattern with instructions for a bustier dress by Miasu on BurdaStyle (check it out), which I used for the bodice of this dress. I had to adjust the pattern quite a lot though because I have quite a different body shape to her. Instead of her zipper back piece I did the elastic shirring instead. The skirt is a half-circle and self-drafted, with one seam at the back - easy peasy. I simply gathered it to fit the waist of the top piece. It’s a remarkably comfy fit that hides my broad hips, yay, and the flirty cheerfulness of the whole ensemble makes me happy.
A note on the background:
The purple starry effect is completely accidental, but so, so magical. We had pinned up a large sheet of black fabric over my curtains, which are red with white stars. The idea was for a plain black background for professional-looking photographs. We took the photos during the day with light coming through the window, which led to this stunning effect.
Take a look at more of the pictures from a super fun photoshoot, masterfully done by Jess:
