Carole in blue velvet

Should that be “Carolyn” in blue velvet?? well I think it should! Because this thing is so very very me! LOOOOOOVE!

Actually, this is the Carole pattern, from the new issue of Fibre Mood magazine, available for purchase here.

The fabric is a totally GORGEOUS deep blue velvet that I bought at the Morrison fabric sale from.. ooh, maybe a few years ago? I forget. This also happens to be the only piece of fabric I had big enough for this pattern. Lol! Same as for the Faye dress, this pattern is a HUGE fabric hog! It doesn’t show up too much, but there is a centre back seam on every back piece; the bodice, the middle piece, and the skirt piece. This is not ideal, but was completely unavoidable. The skirt piece alone is ginormous! Even trickier; the pattern is designed for fabric 150cm wide, which my fabric was NOT ahem; it’s important to comply with this simply because the skirt piece is too big to cut out with fabric any narrower. I only managed it by flipping the skirt pattern piece by 90 degrees and having a centre back seam.

Even one of the front middle pieces is also pieced down the centre, but I sneakily arranged for it to be the left front, the one that is covered up once the dress is all wrapped up closed. You could never tell! except that I’ve now told the whole internet, right here, woops…

Technical deets: I omitted applying iron on interfacing to the skirt opening edges. Well, I did actually apply it, but thought it looked too stiff and did not allow the skirt to flow and undulate elegantly in the way I desired it too… so I peeled it off. I think the skirt turned out so much better without it!

I had precisely zero velvet left after cutting out the main dress pieces, so cut the bodice and neckline facing from an old pair of Sam’s work trousers, which was the perfect shade of inky navy blue. I’ve previously used these same trousers for the piping and buttons on this dress here. Waste not want not!

For the ribbon tie closure, I bought a length of navy blue cotton twill tape, and zig-zagged the raw ends so it won’t fray. The hem is hand-slip-stitched in place.

I absolutely LOVE this dress! I almost, almost wish the weather was colder, so I could start wearing it in earnest… but well, I could never truly wish for colder weather, really. Not with a straight face. However, I shall very much look forward to wearing it next year. Truthfully, I actually finished making this quite a while ago… like a few weeks ago #oops but have been completely unable to take a picture of it. Partly that’s me being lazy. It’s been so hot! unseasonably so, and I just didn’t want to put it on. I did try to take pictures indoors, at my now usual photo spot; but they were terrible. I LOVE velvet but obviously it’s like a black hole when you photograph it, soaking up all light and basically looks just dark and completely featureless. This is an example of what I’m talking about…

hehe, only including the picture because it’s got my beautiful Sophie in it, really…

Another thing is .. well, you guessed. The wedding dress. As well as the wedding consults and planning. We helped a lot with advice and as a sounding board for Tim and Kelly when they were planning theirs; and now of course, Cassie being our daughter, and the lion’s share of planning a wedding generally falling to the girl; fair or not that’s just how it is! well of course we’re fully into the details of this one too. I’m just getting more and more behind on everything! and my sewing/blogging schedule is all over the shop. I’m not complaining, far from it! but just explaining I suppose. Life is currently quite FULL, for us.

Hmmm, got carried away and off the subject just a little bit there… I should just delete all that, but I’m currently in the mood for stream of consciousness blogging, so I guess it should stay. Ha! That’ll teach me!