Little iridescent silk party dress

Little iridescent silk party dress

• 10.20.2010

So, I keep mentioning that I'm going to this wedding this weekend, and I made a little hot pink silk party dress to maybe wear to the wedding, using vintage silk organza, and then I made matching fabric flowers to decorate it.  I'm not totally sure about it, though.  It might be too cute, too bright for a wedding.

So I put together another little dress--this one's little because it's made of scraps of silk dupioni (I used for lining) and iridescent silk chiffon that were left over from the bridesmaid dresses my mom made for my cousin's wedding a couple years ago.  I wish I had had just a little more... but, it worked out with some piecing in the midriff band, which is covered up by a little ruching.  I ended up making up my own pattern, because I cut out the top from McCall's M5849 but modified, which of course was about 4" too big, as most modern patterns end up, so I added decorative pleats in the center front.  Kind of like these dresses:
From Lulu's:

From ?:

Anyway, here it is--maybe I'll wear this to the wedding, maybe the pink.  I'm thinking I'll wait till I see the color scheme when I see my aunts and cousin the days before the wedding!

Silk is so much prettier once you get it all sewn together.  But, boy, is it messy to sew on--little threads everywhere, have to pin everything... but, like I said, great when it's done!  I also added several tucks at the bottom of the hem since I had enough fabric, and it adds texture and all.  Here's the base pattern I basically just used for a jumping off point:

And here's what it ended up as:

Short, but the iridescent silk is fun.  Like I said, depends what I feel like wearing the day of the wedding!