So I’ve been stalking the Vampires Wife on social media for nearly a year now and dreaming of Liberty Tana Lawn or floral velvet maxi dresses. But making one was a massive time commitment when we were in the middle of selling our flat, & I would need to do a mock up version and these things are fabric hogs and finding very long lengths of fabric to practice with at the stall on Lewisham Market can be tricky and although I have a couple of lovely suitable patterns there was nothing in jersey. So I never got round to it.
Until literally the week before Christmas when I saw a post on McCalls Instagram (which I have stolen to replicate below) and was blown away….
Now Vogue V9264 is a pattern I’d completely overlooked. Largely because of the utterly frumpy granny style style line drawings of the dress on the pattern front…
And the even worse cheap looking crushed velvet Kardashian style number that was the main demo version I’d seen at that point on the internet.
Neither of which were prepossessing looks that got me interested in that pattern.
But within ten minutes of seeing the post on Instagram (above) I had ordered the pattern and was planning a version of it for my next make.
Luckily I had the right yardage of a perfect velvet jersey knocking around in my stash as well. I bought it from Maggies Fabric in lewisham market about a year ago and I’d sat on it having no idea what it wanted to be.
& two days later the pattern arrived and a project was born. To give myself extra pressure I intended it to be ready for my friends Christmas vinyl dj set four days later.
But I needn’t have worried it is one of the simplest patterns I’ve played with in a long time and at a straight size 22 it is pretty much spot on fit wise.
I even had time to hang it overnight to let the weight of the hem settle before hemming it.
So here are photos. Literally I loved this dress so much it got worn 3 times in 8 days (and washed in between – which was somewhat a miracle cuz at the time we had a rather crappy washing machine set up)
I debated properly ripping off Vampires Wife by adding a ruffle round the bottom, but overall I’m glad I didn’t.
I love this dress! I am planning two more versions of the pattern in different lengths and fabrics and I keep trying to find opportunities to wear it – which is quite difficult actually, even though I tend to be the queen of spectacularly overdressed for the occasion, it’s a bit extra for my everyday wardrobe needs.
On an interesting side note, I was browsing Depop a few days ago and came across this baby from Topshop….
Apologies to anyone if this is their photo, but I think it’s the original Topshop catalogue shot.
Now all the fabric from Maggies on Lewisham Market is deadstock and samples largely from high street stores, but occasionally from high end designers, but I usually have very little clue what the high street brands actually do with it – if they even use it at all. So in this case it was rather nice to see Topshop’s version. I actually quite like it. I suspect it would have been too short for me to have bought it though, & I just squeeze into a Topshop 18 (their sizes run larger than average) so I’m not sure I’d have found one to fit anyway.
I haven’t been very prolific with the sewing since Christmas. I’ve made a top for someone else, a dress I’m not too keen on, & I’m currently working on quite a big project fairy goth dress for a festival I’m going to in summer so I haven’t got all that much to show. We’ve been having to do quite a lot of adulting though, our flat sale fell through, Jons uncle has died and Jons dad is ill, so I haven’t had very much time to dedicate to sewing. Hopefully things will speed up a bit over the next few weeks.
euphoricstimuli 