I said at the beginning of the year that I wanted to challenge myself and this dress has certainly achieved that! It wasn’t so much that it was incredibly difficult to sew, just that it highlighted there are certain things that I now find frustratingly hard. I don’t like having to face up to my disability, I prefer to keep it in the back of my mind but this make focused a lot on using my hands and my lack of sensation in my fingers and general lack of mobility was becoming increasingly annoying.
I wouldn’t usually make a long floaty dress because the fabric gets caught in my wheels but I took a chance on this one and I think I’m going to be ok as it’s so straight. Hubby has had an idea to make a back strap for my leg rest to protect my fabric if I have problems, but so far it hasn’t caught once.
The dress is Vogue 1762 which is designed by Zandra Rhodes. Wearing it feels so luxurious – a little like wearing a Kimono, albeit one with Bishop sleeves!
This pattern was very kindly gifted to me by Minerva for their #SewnWithVogue challenge. My fabric had been in my stash for a while. It’s such a dreamy design and reminds me of tropical beaches. The dress is intended for a stripe fabric as it is cut in different directions to highlight the pattern change. My chiffon does have the hint of a stripe running through the design and I think if I wasn’t seated you would be able to see this more, but i’m very happy with the finished effect. It’s possibly not what Zandra envisaged, but it’s just what I was imagining for the fabric.
It is a lined chiffon wrap-over dress that is close fitting through the bust with lovely chiffon contrast binding. I had to ensure that the wrap wouldn’t gape or drag the fabric when I was seated but this doesn’t seem to be a problem.
It has a quilted waistband intended to be made of satin (although I chose to use up some left over shantung dupion) and matching ties. It has Bishop sleeves ending in cuffs with button and contrast chiffon loop closures.
There is so much attention to detail in the design, from the way the contrast piping picks out the edges of the seams and loop closures to the detailed quilting on the waistband. Not to mention those gorgeous sleeves.
I’ll be honest I didn’t realise the waistband was quilted when I first chose this dress, it came as somewhat of a shock when I read through the instructions as I’ve never quilted anything before so was a little nervous to say the least. However, I needn’t have worried, as apart from being quite time consuming it wasn’t anywhere near as difficult as I imagined.
The initial stages of this dress seemed to take ages. It took me a while to perfect the fit and my hubby had issues cutting out the fabric as the skirt pieces are huge and could only be cut out on the floor. We prefer to cut chiffon on my cutting table using a rotary cutter.
I also found making the waistband ties difficult as they are effectively very long rouleau loops that have to be turned the correct way out and my fabric was quite thick to do this. It would have been easy with a thin satin so please bear this in mind if you make this dress.
There is also a reasonable amount of hand sewing, which I find really difficult due to the lack of sensation in my fingers. I just took it slowly, laughed at the number of times I dropped or unthreaded the needle and got there in the end.
I’m pretty familiar with French seams now but I have to admit that I found the French seams on the arm holes difficult. Trying to get the chiffon to behave and neatly pass through the foot was definitely a challenge.
The cuffs are supposed to have fourteen buttons but when I placed my order there were only 12 left of the ones I had set my heart on (they are being discontinued) so I decided to go with 12 instead. I think I’ve managed to get away with it.
The general sewing was relatively straight forward. I predominantly used a microtex needle with my walking foot, but did swap to a rolled hem foot for the edges of the skirt.
I can’t tell you how much I love this dress. It has been hard, even painful to make but the end result just makes me smile. I hope you will give this pattern a try.
Image Descriptions: There are a number of photos showing Yvonne sat in her wheelchair in her garden surrounded by foliage plants. The photos are taken from different angles to show a full length chiffon wrap dress that has bishop sleeves. The fabric is white with blue and sand coloured abstract patterns. The waistband is blue .
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