Front View:
Close-up of the belt band:
Dress with jacket:
And here are the specs:
Pattern:
TNT Dress Pattern
Fabrics:
1 yard creamy vanilla silk crepe from Fabric Mart
1.5 yards ltwt yellow wool crepe from Metro Textiles
1/2 yard of floral yellow silk georgette from Fabric Mart (this has been marinating in the collection for several years!)
Notions:
2.5 yards of vanilla lining from Ebad Fabrics
22" invisible zipper
3 yards of a lace hem tape
2.5 yards of lace trim
2 yards of silk organza
All of the construction details can be found in these posts from March! Yikes, this dress has been sitting for a minute! This was a very involved dress with alot of construction parts...and as you know it was held up by the invisible zipper insertion but it was a great dress to wear to work! It's actually the first dress in the Sunshine Yellow Dress and Jacket Collection. So I guess I did work on some of the collection last weekend after all!!!
However, there is a huge oops with the insertion of the invisible zipper:
After I put it in and discovered this, I just wanted to cry. After all of the work that went into the dress, the thought of ripping out the zipper was too much for me to bear. I KNOW I should take it apart and redo it...I just CAN'T! I keep thinking that if I had used a centered zipper this would not have happened. So, I will wear this dress with my little white jacquard jacket...never to take the jacket off. I will now have to practice inserting an invisible zipper using Els technique.
Here's a view of the dress and jacket back...see how it covers the oops...and please, please do not emulate this bad behaviour! Cause I really should take it out and do it again...y'know what I mean!
Well live and learn...*sigh*
63 comments:
Carolyn I love this dress! Yellow is your color. As usual you're just dripping chic. Don't fret over the back - been there too. If you have some extra fabric for the band maybe you can make a squarish bow or flat loop to cover the zipper that is stitched on one side and attached with hooks & eyes on the other.
Gee, I can't tell you how many times I've made "oopses" like that! Phyllis is right - you look fabulous in yellow, and that dress is spectacular on you. It put a smile on my face on this oh-so-dreary day!
Carolyn....this is so beautiful!
..and you look glorious wearing it.
(it's such a gorgeous dress that no one will ever notice that little zipper "blip")
I think that dress is a real winner. It's so pretty, light, springy just lovely. Opps happen. Have you ever tried hand picked zippers. I use them now and then. Matching is so much easier when you do it by hand. It's kinda relaxing. I'll do it when I watch tv. Opps or otherwise it's wonderful. Started my own blog if you want to take a look see.
Lovely dress and like the pleated belt band.
Great dress, what oops?
I lurv it. I really love the waist / belt band and the mixing of colors. It took me years to care about the zipper / waistband!
The dress is so elegant
I feel so sorry for the zipper
I am just like you I just could not do it again
Very pretty, summery type dress. Enjoy wearing it!
So springy! Yes, a nice lift to see you so pretty after all the rain for the past two days and forecast for tomorrow.
The zip, well, I have to say that it isn't easy to line stuff up, but I have a method for doing so - give me a shout if you want a tutorial on how I do it. If the mismatch of the zip really bugs you, pack it up and send it to me. I'll redo it for you - you're such a wonderful and inspirational blogger that I'd hate to see you stuck in that jacket all summer in that lovely dress. Seriously. I think you have my address and I have plenty of time.
Carolyn, I feel more relaxed now to see that oops can happen to experienced sewer too, if that is a consolation...
I would have cried too.
APart from that, the dress is beautiful, especially the belt.
But you know you won't be able to have your jacket on all the time ...
That dress is fantastic! And if anyone gets close enough to actually see the boo boo, you really should smack them!
Beeeauuuutiful!! No one will ever know about the zipper except you. I love love love the belt!
Gorgeous dress. And well worth the wait! I'm sorry about the zipper... I'm really the queen of "Oops"-es, and have worn many of them unaltered, but I think this is such a beautiful dress, and you'll obviously always be conscious of the zipper, so I think you ought to redo it. Or have it done. Why not have it done by someone else?
It looks just gorgeous! I can imagine how heartbroken you must be that, after all that work, it isn't perfect. Perhaps you will get the energy to fix it.
Beautiful!
The average Joe/Jane won't notice the flub even if you pointed it out to them.
The band gives it nice detail.
Lovely. Just lovely. Why do we focus so much on the ONE mistake and not the gazillions of things we did right? It must be the nature of human beings because I do the same thing. I'm going to try not to do it so often :)
CarlaF-in Atlanta
That's still a darn pretty dress in spite of the zipper :)
That dress looks really nice on you.
Carolyn, I love the two piece look, and especially the band. I can see many ways to vary this dress with different fabrics. I was thinking of making a dress with a belt now I definitely will. And I forgot to mention the color! What a great dress.
Marguerite
super...
Oh! This is so lovely and fresh!
Maybe once you've had some distance from the finishing of it you'll be able to go back and re-do the zipper. I know that's how it is with me when I make an 'oops'.
And thank you for giving me even more inspiration for mixing fabrics together. I don't know what it is, but I have such hard time getting myself to put fabrics of different fibres together. Like I subconsciously believe only cotton should go with cotton, and silk with silk, etc. I NEED to get OUT of that rut!!!!
Simply gorgeous Carolyn. You look lovely in yellow!
Oh what a pretty dress! I make oops mistakes like that and I hate to rip out and redo too. I understand your reluctance. You look good in yellow!
I hate ripping out invisible zippers, so I know just where you are. (And I've been there often enough to recognize the place!)
The dress is just gorgeous. It was well worth the wait to see this one and everyone will be so staggered by how fabulous you look in it that they won't notice the oops anyway.
This is why I have finally started hand-basting half the zipper. It's worth it and actually doesn't take much time.
LOVE the dress! The colors, the pleated belt, so perfect for Spring!
Next time you go snoop shopping, check out those zipper insertions. A lot of them do not match up and your construction quality sure beats the heck out of most RTW! And there is always Summerset's offer if you just can't stand it anymore but can't stand to fiddle with it either!
This is such a refreshing outfit. You look great in it and I love the combination of fabrics. Enjoy wearing it this summer.
The colors are so nice... you look happy to be wearing it! It looks great! And see only a "few" of us know of the "oops"! Don't worry we won't tell anyone!
Love the yellow and white color combo. So fresh! Dresses made from your TNT always look so great on you. You are inspiring me to make more dresses. My invisible zipper insertions improved (still not great) when I started machine basting or tacking them to the SA at key points (at top and where seams meet) It's a pain but still beats ripping out zippers.
The dress looks great on you! I've heard something about the 3' rule and the galloping horse rule. I think they are: no one will notice from 3' away; and no one will notice when you're moving. And, I don't think most would notice anyway!
Take that sweater off! It will be too hot this summer.
Yeah, Carolyn, loving this creamy dress on you! I'm a member of that same oops club. I have to learn to slow down and baste more.
Ohhhh, you are foxy looking. A cummerbund just screams class. Wow!
Very nice look, forget the back, with a jacket like that who needs extra things to obsess about?
Just lovely Carolyn! I'm sorry about your 'oops', I've certainly done that too.
Outstanding dress and jacket - it looks splendid on you - great fit which to me is everything when you're doing an outfit. Wear it with the jacket for a while, and when you get in the humor, redo the cummerbund in back. In the meantime, the dress is a winner.
If Spring were a dress, that would be it! I particularly like the cumberbund band.
Carolyn I absolutely love that dress...unfortunately I, like you, are not loving that zipper and think you are doing that gorgeous creation a disservice if you don't wear it sometimes without the jacket. Hell I was gonna try and borrow it if I was ever in your area and I want it to be perfect when I get there!
Lovely and summery! No one other than a sewer will notice the back I'm sure! And even we may not have if you didn't point it out :)
That butter yellow colour is gorgeous! I have some linen in a similar shade just itching to be sewn up. As everyone else has said, yellow really is your colour. That jacket is going to be a very useful garment as well. The shape of the neckline really frames your face beautifully.
Wow!
This is really lovely and looks wonderful on you! I don't blame you for not wanting to redo the zipper. I'm sitting here in a pair of pants that are too big and I can't bear to take out all my top-stitching to take them in so I'll never get to them.
Look at you smiling so big, pretty lady! Love the dress - that colour is perfect on you. Oh, and I promise not to tell about the zipper mishap - BTDT!!
Just love the dress. It looks fabulous.
I am so sorry about the zipper. But I tally understand, you reach a point were it's almost unbareble to to one more thing on a project.
I think the dress looks still really good though.
Beautiful dress! Too beautiful to keep under a jacket. I'd let Somerset redo it for you and let her "shop" your fabric closet as payment. You are the queen of the fabric closets!
Linda
Beautiful dress,great colors. An "oops" is the artist's personal signature. Signifies one of a kind. :)
That is one beautiful outfit! I wish I had that yellow floral; it would be so awesome for so many things. Enjoy your dress! I'm glad your camera is talking to your computer again.
I know it's such a great feeling when you finish something that you have worked on so hard. Your dress looks GREAT!
OMG - that dress is fabulous. Nobody would know about the zipper if you hadn't pointed it out. Thank you for the continued inspiration. I love seeing how you interpret to make it so gloriously Carolyn. g
Oh Carolyn, we've all been there, both at the discovery of an oopsie, and at the decision to just roll with it. Your dress looks fabulous with the jacket :)
What about hand sewing a narrow band of lemon grosgrain or braid along the edge of the band, to even up the point where they meet? Would that work?
It's a really flattering dress, I love it on you!
Oh now, don't flog yourself.. Just because you don't want to take it out now doesn't mean it's forever. You'll wear it with the jacket for weeks, months, years. And some day the hurt will be over, you'll grab it, rip that zipper out, and fix the whole thing. It's not like you have to worry about hem marks or something, it'll be just as good in 3 years as this week..
In the meantime, enjoy wearing that great dress :-). And cute jacket. What zipper??
I think it's safe to say we all love this dress, and yellow IS your color! Just want to chime in and say I agree with Phyllis - the very first commenter - because don't "they" say that an "oops" is a design opportunity? I think her suggestion would really work well and then you could wear the dress without the jacket, if you so chose.
Oh, I, too, love this dress. I'm so happy you shared. I've been looking for a similar dress for an upcoming wedding, and I'm definitely giving this a try. You look lovely in these colors, and you did a great job with the "belt". Don't worry about that zipper. I don't know anyone who feels comfortable with zippers and I've been sewing for over 40 years. It's always SOMETHING with them, isn't it! Enjoy it. You did a wonderful job.
Invisible zippers are either in like a dream or evil. El's method is a big improvement over the usual instructions though.
But, it's yellow and I love yellow and it looks very pretty on you.
Carolyn, you flat look great!
SusanW
I agree with everyone else. That dress looks lovely on you. I also love how you did the waistband.
Dress is gorgeous! I did the same exact thing on a maxi-dress recently. This happened when I followed the pattern instructions on making a "laped" zipper. Like you I will not rip it out...I will wear a shrug.
FABULOUS!!!!! I LOVE this dress!
I can understand you not wanting to redo the zipper just after putting so much time and effort into this dress. Don't feel guilty... Maybe after a few months you'll go back to it... Maybe you wont. It's a really beautiful dress, your own design, and you should be very proud!
Gorgeous, I absolutely love the band detail. Enjoy wearing it, don't bother the zipper.
I LOVE this dress. Yellow is my favorite color. Thanks so much for sharing. It looks so nice without the jacket, you really need to consider fixing the oops at some point.
Lovely dress!! Nice choice of fabric for spring time... You're looking beautiful in this dress!!
Yellow is a perfect choice of color for dresses this time of year. And good choice with the jacket. It looks great!
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