The Muted Fancy Frock

Wow! I took a long break didn't I? We've been out of our element since December 20th! That was their last day before Christmas break. The kids had about 2 and a half weeks off school due to the holidays and SNOW! They went in for one day on Thursday then had off on Friday and are still now at home due to a 2-hour delay because of freezing rain. As you can imagine with Christmas and four kids, it's been hard to get anything done!!

I did manage to sew this dress for a New Year's Eve party. I tried to sew it the day before the party and ended up failing at the last minute to finish it. When I wore it to the party it was short (knee length) and not at all what I wanted. So I took it home early that morning and literally RIPPED it off and threw it in a clothes pile on the floor. Here are some party photos via Dan Martzall. The party was so perfect. The ambiance. The food. The friends! Really, I couldn't gush about it enough. 

The bodice was still salvageable so I seam ripped the skirt and started over again. This was a lot closer to what I wanted though not completely ideal still. I did learn a lot about what I do want in this dress. I'm ultimately trying to make a wedding gown. One like this and this combined. Silk chiffon. Fitted bodice. Strapless. Ruched bodice. I didn't attempt a ruched bodice with this dress as I wanted to go with sequins but that will present a whole new set of challenges since I've never made a ruched bodice before. I don't want to make a simple ruched top either. I want to have the ruching go in all different directions so I think I'm a ways off from perfecting that.

For this New Year's Eve dress I slightly altered the bodice from the McCall's pattern M6893 below. I eliminated the waistband and straps and added wide elastic to the back of the bodice to help hold it up. I also wore a tight bustier underneath and strapless bra to aid with "lift";-) I gathered the waist without flaring the skirt and I think that was a mistake. I think the next time I make this dress I'll do a combination of both. I'll flare the skirt and gather the waist a bit. I think the effect will be a tighter waist and fluffier floor hem. 

I used some sort of polyester chiffon for the skirt. I would have gladly spent the extra money on silk chiffon but I couldn't find any locally:-( But the material I did use had a very lovely soft, transparent, limp feel to it. Surprising for polyester. I bought it at a discount fabric outlet so it didn't have any description other than "polyester". Ugh. I hate that. I would have like to have known how they got it so soft. I made the bodice with matte gold sequins which is why I called it the "Muted" Fancy frock since the sequins don't sparkle.

Also check out these crazy shoes! I bought them for the party but since I didn't get to finish the long skirt I never got to wear them. Got them here on Amazon Prime for $22.49. Have any of you ever tried walking in heelless shoes before? I have to say that they are A LOT easier to walk in if you are comparing them to extremely high wedges or stilettos. The reason is because when you walk your heel doesn't hit the floor too soon causing that "Frankenstein march" that you sometimes get with stilettos or wedges. The walk is more natural....well....as natural as 5.25" inch heels can be. As for balance I would say they weren't any more treacherous than another crazy high heel. That is to say they were still pretty scary to walk in;-) The straps on these shoes hurt after a while so maybe if you wanted to buy a high heelless shoe I'd go with these instead. OMGosh! Check these out! Weird.