My February polka dot frock

I have to admit, I'm pretty excited to  be showing this one off today!

 

For this is a frock that involved a lot of firsts - and first among those is the fact that never before (I can't actually believe it) have I participated in a sewalong or online sewing event of any sort. But the other week a series of tweets by Scruffy Badger and friends caught my eye, and before I knew it there was a #februaryfrockfest welcoming sewists to sign up for a month of New Look 6000-inspired polkadot loveliness.

 

And it grabbed me. So I did it! And here - drum roll please! - is my first ever rendition of New Look 6000:

 

 

Which is also the first thing I have ever sewn or even worn involving polka dots. And includes my first ever vertical darts (how is it possible I've never done that before??) and first ever kick pleat. In fact I've hardly sewn any dresses in such a classic style before - so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this is an extremely straightforward make.

 

I was confident and impatient enough to decide I wouldn't bother trying my first ever lapped zipper, and put in a straightforward invisible zip instead. I'm not too pleased with the gap of brown between polkadots at the upper back, but then - it's on my back, I don't care that much.

 

 

I made a 14, the middle of the wildly disparate sizes suggested by my measurements, with 2 cm added to the bust darts and 2.5 cm removed from the back. A quick&dirty muslin on Sunday showed that these, my by-now standard pattern adjustments, were fine - but that the waist and bust darts fell far too low. I raised the whole lot by two inches; were I to make this again (and I may well), I'd lower them back down by half that. My bosoms are a little overfitted in this dress, and the waist now falls slightly too high. Another first - I always have the opposite problem, and it feels slightly odd to be wearing something where the garment's waist is higher than mine! The final fit could still do with some tweaking (I think I might have to add swayback to my list of standard alterations), but for a first go I'm extremely happy with how it all turned out.

 

BUT, in my humble and not particularly modest opinion, the most exciting and brilliant thing about this fabulous frock is my first ever underlining. Not the execution (my word, underlining isn't a shortcut at all is it?!), but the colour...

 

 

 

 

Classic and calm on the outside, but on the inside I'm wearing hot pink.

 

 

No-one in the office would ever guess, would they?

 

 

 

I leave you with my top style tip of winter 2013: stylish dressing on cold mornings is made vastly easier by having a scarf that matches your favourite tights.

 

Thank you so much Winnie for the idea, the inspiration and the organising! This may have been my first of many things but I doubt it'll be my last of any of them!