Fancy dress: Sicily/Jose Cowl Neck Maxi Slip Dress

 *Fabric gifted by Minerva.com in exchange for a post on their website. All opinions are my own.*

As the pandemic continues, I find myself gravitating towards more dramatic runway-esque styles and glamourous eveningwear vibes. I'm afraid by the end of this pandemic, I'll have so many of these "sew frosting" items that are not practical for everyday wear, but perfect for nonexistent events that I don't get invites to attend. That said, let's talk about the fabric that kick started this make's journey! 

The fabric is a large-scale printed floral crepe by Lady McElroy in muted reds and greens and accented by bits of pastel pink and mustard color. The fabric is quite lightweight and a little bit sheer, but the print does help to distract you from the sheerness though. It has a subtle crinkled texture to it and drapes beautifully. To be honest, when I was choosing the fabric, I was trying to challenge myself to use bigger and bolder prints because I don't usually gravitate towards those. 

Conceptualizing a Pattern to match the Fabric

The original plan was to make a long sleeve wrap dress. Then it was a two piece set that I could mix and match with existing wardrobe. But when the fabric arrived and I looked at the print, it was busier and much bolder than I initially thought. Back to square one... 

With such a beautiful print to show off, I was off to search for a simple pattern with minimal style lines. I arrived at these two: 

    1. Paradise Pattern’s Hallon Dress that has taken over my feed this summer or 

    2. Designer Stitch’s Jose cowl neck slip dress, a similar pattern to Sewing Masin’s Sicily Slip dress

To be honest, I waffled between the two silhouettes quite a bit. If you followed me on Instagram Stories, you would know I had trouble deciding down to the last SECOND! I love the dramatic gathered low back on the Hallon and the elegant high neckline. But I also love the sexy cowl neck of the Jose/Sicily and the super simple silhouette to show off the fabric. I had a battle of dress mock-ups and draped both of these beautiful details on the dress form to get a visual. It really helps to see a mock up in person because I’m not the best at imagining how the final product would work. 

After staring at the details of these two dresses for a little bit, I finally decided to make the slip dress. The print on the fabric felt really overwhelming when gathered up, and somehow I can't stop seeing "grandma's curtains". I still have plans to make the Hallon dress, but it will come in a different post, so stay tuned! Because I already made a Jose cami and knew it fitted me really well, I decided to skip the muslin and went straight for the fabric.

Hallon Dress drape

Sicily/Jose dress drape

Working with the Fabric

Oh boy. I wish I could tell you how easy it was to whip up this dress. But it was not. The floral crepe is beautifully floaty and drapey. And to make the cowl fall correctly, the pattern piece needed to be cut on the bias. I'm glad I had a large work table to spread out the fabric in one layer to cut on the bias. I then eyeballed where the crossgrain is so I can identify and line up the bias. Just fiddling with the fabric took me a really long time. The fabric has a bit of crinkled texture, which is beautiful! But I was also hoping to retain that feature, so I did not press the fabric prior to cutting. In hindsight, it would have been best if I had pressed it since the bias nature of it would force the texture to go away due to gravity pulling. Also, the bias really does stretch quite a bit, and I didn't like how stretchy it made the bias tape, so I opted to cut the tape on the straight grain because the shoulder straps really need to hold the weight of the dress. 

The cutting portion wasn't too bad as long as I was being careful, and having multiple cutting mats to go underneath the fabric is really helpful. Currently, I have two 2x3 ft mat that covers a little over half my table. But, ideally, I would really like for the whole table to be covered. Nonetheless, I managed to get the pieces cut out. While cutting, I decided I wanted to extend the dress to floor length afterall, and added on an additional 4 inches haphazardly - whoops! 

I put in extra seam allowances on the side seams, just in case, and instead of sewing a french seam to conceal the raw edges, I decided to serge it. Turns out I either need to roll hem it, or do a 4-thread overlock because this 3-thread overlock stitch is pulling and stretching and doing all sorts of weird things. Either the feeddogs were feeding too fast, or it's just how bias fabrics sews, my having trouble on the serger was not exactly a joyful moment, but I was not feeling defeated until I was on the sewing machine. The drapey AND bias nature of this piece really makes sewing this fabric a bit of a nightmare. UGH! The fabric still slipped after I broke out the walking foot, so I had to correct it manually at times.

I can assure you I was not nearly this happy when the fighting-with-fabric was going on.

Fitting 

Unfortunately for me, there was a bit of fitting to be done because this fabric was a lot more drapey and fluid than the fabric I used for the Jose cami top. Plus, I really should have pressed out those crinkles like I said before to make my life easier. I had to try it on several many times to get the dress to look right on me and drape over my body. I attempted to take in the dress while on the dressform, but it looked even weirder on me. I wondered if all the adjusting while on the bias and shody sewing was affecting the fit. In the end, I decided to seam rip everything and start over. Once I did that, everything fit much better. Want to know the detail? Read onto the Sewing Detours, otherwise, Skip to final thoughts! We're a choose your adventure type of blog here. ;)  

Choose your own adventure! I did ;) 

Sewing Detour 1: How the heck do I sew this slippy fabric!?

The drapey and bias fabric was not bringing me joy, and I had to google some ideas on how to deal with the problems effectively. I finally stumbled upon Made to Sew's guide on how to sew with slippy fabrics: 

https://madetosew.com/sewing-with-silk-slippy-fabrics/

Highly recommend giving it a read if you are planning on sewing with slippy fabric AND on the bias. Her recommendation of sewing between tissue papers worked great for me. My seam was super long and it was difficult to wrangle tissue papers and fabrics layers, but I ended up laying everything as flat as possible, then pin everything before going to the machine. If I had read the post EARLIER, I would have cut the pieces between tissue papers from the start and save myself some headache. 

Sewing the tissue sandwich with a lot of pins!

With the sewing issues worked out, the fit looks much better because the fabric can now drape like it should. Because I went through all the trouble of basically redoing the whole garment, I might as well try this new idea of mine - making this garment "adjustment". 

Sewing Detour Part 2: Steps to Make an "Adjustable" Garment

I first learned of this "adjustable" garment idea from Tricia at Creative Costume Academy. She presented this idea as it is common practice in the theatre/costume industry where one garment is adjustable up to several sizes to fit different actors/actresses in the same role. The idea is to have larger seam allowances for such adjustments, and the trick is to mix up normal sewing order to achieve adjustments with a seam added or removed. I love that idea! And it's a great way to KEEP loving this garment! This bias dress has very little seam, so it's actually a really good way for me to learn how to apply this adjustable garment concept. Here is how I did it: 

1. Finish the neckline cowl as instructed 
2. Attach bra strap ring holder as instructed
3. Finish the armholes and back with bias binding, taking care to fold under the bias tape at both ends. I used the method where you fold the bias tape inside such that it is invisible to the outer garment. and opted to finish the bias tape by hand sewing the edge down and picking up a a couple threads at a time. 
4. Finish side seams: I had serged the side seams earlier on, but now is the time to serge if you don't want to fold under the bias tape on the side seams like I did.  
5. Sew the side seams in the tissue paper sandwich. Btw, you can sew ahead several lines so all you have to do is unpick... Guess what? I should have done that, but I didn't - whoops! 
6. Sew on adjustable bra strap as instructed: See Bra strap finishing section for more details
7. Let hang for 24 hours
8. Finish hem 

Handsewing finishes - isn't it delicious? 

Thank goodness I have a somewhat pinnable top, makes pressing this fiddly bit easier.

Bra Strap Finishing

The bra strap was a bit tricky because I opted for a wider strap to cover my bra straps. I followed the instructions to leave about 1cm at the arm bias finish, but then wing the rest of it. When I stitched the second pass for my bias finish at the armhole, I left about an inch unfinished. Once I figured out how to properly weave the bra strap in and out of the slider and ring, I took the ends of the strap and the bias and sewn to rights sides together a little bit under where the cowl begins. It is important you do that because the dress will fall due to gravity and your stitches will show, ask me how I know. Trim excess if needed, and press if you can. The strap should look like it's attached to the dress. Now, stitched the bias tape and the strap together again, being careful not to catch the cowl. It's a bit bulky but the fabric is lightweight enough that isn't a huge concern for me. Besides, I need this to hold up the whole dress - I'll take bulky. Continue to stitch down the bias tape so you can hide all the bulk! It's not the most elegant solution, but I made it work for me - let me know if you have a better way to do this! New ideas are most welcome! 

Back of the dress

Back view close up

All that's left is to Hem!

At this point, I'm just procrastinating about hemming the dress. However. I intend to hem it such that when it does drag on the ground behind me, the fabric doesn't get damaged. An idea came to me, probably planted when I was watching one of Bernadette Banner's videos, was to add a hem guard. I think I'll try a 1-2" strip of lightweight cotton muslin to start and if I hate it, I can replace it. ;)

Final Thoughts

This fabric is absolutely gorgeous - the drape and fluidity is beautiful. But, I would not recommend sewing a bias project with it unless you're mentally prepared for it. Instead, it would make a really beautiful, drapey top or skirt as is, without the bias. That said, the Made to Sew resource is really helpful if you want to attempt bias. Give it a read if you'd like before starting your project, it might save you a lot of headaches!

I'm so pleased with the dress and can't wait to have an occasion to wear it! I'm debating about using left over scraps and adding godets at the bottom to make it into a more mermaid silhouette. But for now, I should think about hemming the dress.