A Completed Simplicity 8873

Good morning!  I’ve done it again and I waited too long to post about something I’ve made.  I had already forgotten a few details about it that I didn’t bother to note on the pattern, but I dug deep into my memory bank – even pulled a ruler out- and I’ve got the missing information at the front of my brain for my dress review of this Simplicity 8873.

I made this one back at the beginning of March; made it pretty quickly actually, and it only lacked the hem which I would get to at a later time.  (I was torn between a regular narrow edge hem, or finding some black bias for a contrasting hem to match the center front lace addition.)  Well, I wore it last weekend for the first time, and guess what?  I never did hem it.  It’s just a serged edge at the moment, and I know now that I will just be doing a regular ol’ hem, when I finally get the time to do it.

I am a bit ahead of myself so let me go back to the start of the dress.  I am part of Gertie’s Sew and Tell group over on Facebook so I get to see a lot of makes from her patterns on a pretty regular basis.  I also get to see pics of new patterns that are heading to stores soon and this was one such pattern.  It was a new spring release and when I started seeing several people getting their hands on it, I went to Joann’s myself to see if I could find one.  No luck the first time, but the second time I looked I asked one of the workers if it was available maybe somewhere in the back, not stocked yet.  He gladly went to check for me and came back with a copy.  I was very happy, and even more so because the pattern was on sale, only a couple of bucks.  So now I was ready to make my very own new Gertie dress that I had started to see showing up online.

It’s not fully lined – yay! High-five for neck and arm facings!  It has a nice full skirt, and some neat tie straps.  The neck looked a little high to me, but since it was strappy, I thought I could deal with it.  (Not a fan of high neck clothing on myself.)  Looked like a simple, quick make.

Simple and quick it was.  I had no issues with this one at all.  I cut it out between two sizes: 12 for the sides and 10 for the neck and arms.  I find that patterns are usually loose for me on top more than at the waist.  I also ended up cutting about 5/8″ off of the bottom of the bodice, and I am pretty sure I cut at least an inch off of the skirt.  I didn’t note the amounts I cut off at these two places, but that is where the ruler I mentioned at the beginning came in handy for remembering this.  At this point in sewing I always take anywhere from 1/2″ to 1″ off almost all major pattern bodices so I sometimes forget to note that specific detail when I first make new dresses since it’s just common place nowadays.  And this skirt is really long.

My one and only complaint about the dress, hemming a very full circle skirt.  It has to be a narrow hem and it’s time consuming.  I started pre-pressing for the hem, but quit and never got back to it.  I was undecided how I wanted to hem it.  You will notice I have some black lace contrast at the center front seam, this was to hide my intentional cutting error.  You see, I bought the fabric on clearance for nothing specific in mind to make, and when this dress needed so much for the full skirt, I had no folds left to cut out the front bodice.  I had to cut it in two pieces; therefore, making a seam down the center front.  The fabric is busy enough it didn’t matter, but I wanted to hide it since my last make ended up with a center seam down the front as well.  I thought about using a black bias to hem the dress to match the lace, but changed my mind.  I shared my make on the Facebook page I mentioned at the beginning and got several comments to leave it without the contrast at the hem.  So leave it, I shall.

I am pretty sure I will eventually hem the dress properly though.  😉

And this is how I wore the dress when I did, with a sweater.  We’re still having bouts of cool weather here and there, plus I am somewhat self-conscious of bare arms in real life.  Never mind for pics on the blog, ha ha!  With the exception of this last picture, I am also very happy with how many good pictures I ended up with.  A sewing and picture taking success!

Thanks for reading.  I’d love your feedback.  ❤