Yesterday, we spent the day celebrating my cousin’s wedding. I previously made my first Vogue V9253 (which is now reprinted as V1735) for a family wedding, and thought this wedding would be the perfect opportunity to make the pattern again.
My original V9253 was sewed in a rush (before a Sewing Weekender) and I made lots of mistakes, including sewing and overlocking the bodice back together instead of inserting a zip, which ended in me having to sew narrow strips of fabric to the edges of the back bodice to create enough seam allowance to get a zip in! I made my first version in £2 per metre fabric from Birmingham Rag Market, which has worn reasonably well (to be fair, probably as well as some more expensive fabrics I’ve sewn with) but is showing some pilling and snags. This time around, I decided to take my time over the sewing, and to use a good quality fabric.
The fabric is ‘Bee Happy Blooms‘ viscose in cream, which was one of the fabrics Guthrie & Ghani had printed to celebrate their tenth birthday, earlier this year. I bought two metres of this fabric during the G&G anniversary celebrations, with no project in mind, and had to pop back for an extra metre once I decided to make this dress; luckily they still had the fabric in stock. The pattern was also from my stash, but I previously cut the pattern tissue to a small in the bodice, and medium in the skirt. This time around, I wanted to sew a medium throughout and graded up the bodice section of the pattern rather than buying it again.
I held onto my fabric scraps with the thought that, time permitting, I might make a matching hat/headpiece to wear to the wedding. The day before the wedding I finally got around to it, and cut out these flower shapes, using a cherry blossom pattern from a book on making paper flowers. I interfaced the flower shapes and attached them to vintage wired stamen from my millinery stash. The stamen are Japanese and date from the 50/60s, purchased from Petershams. The flowers were secured on the stamen with masking tape and wound around a narrow alice band – all very quick and easy!
I hope this version of V9253 gets as much wear as my original has (and will continue to). The fabric of my first version has a crispness which I think works really well for this pattern, but I’m also looking forward to getting lots of wears out of this drapier viscose version.