unnecessary sewing: the emerald green evening dress of my dreams

One of the main reasons I started sewing in the first place was because I was almost always going into clothes shops with a very specific idea of what I wanted, and it was almost never there. I might be able to find the right shape but not the right colour, the right colour but in a completely different garment, or more often than is right and proper, the right colour in the right shape but also with a gigantic asymmetrical boob ruffle. Why?? Two and a half years into dressmaking, most of those problems are gone. Unless a) I have an extremely specific plan in mind and I just can't find the exact right pattern for it, or b) I want something green.

I don't know what it is about green fabric, but the colour is almost always wrong. The mossy olive I'm searching for is always muddy, the deep forest green drab and school uniform-ish, and the brilliant emerald just doesn't exist in any form whatsoever. Two winters ago Liberty had a really beautiful emerald green silk, but I couldn't justify £50 per metre, and when I tried to buy some in the sale it had sold out. I still think about that fabric, and the dress I imagined making from it, way more often than I should, but I could never find anything that was even in the same ballpark. Until now.

I saw this satin-back crepe at the Knitting and Stitching show, on the M Rosenberg stand. It was satin side up on the roll, and I'd already decided to buy it just based on the colour. The woman then showed me the crepe side, which feels super expensive and does beautiful things when it moves. (I never realised that was the purpose of satin-back crepe, but consider me thoroughly educated.) The colour isn't quite accurate here - I put an Instagram filter on it and this is much more representative of the actual colour. It is super green and I love it.

I'd already decided this was going to be a straight Anna dress so that the fabric could be the star of the show, but I debated for about a week on length. A knee-length one would be more versatile and I'd probably get a decent amount of wear out of it, but what I wanted was the completely impractical occasionless floor-length version. Patrick told me to make the dress I really wanted, but I was still full of practical doubts, so I let the fabric decide. Turns out, the maxi Anna pattern fits very easily onto three metres of fabric. Oops.

This is about the tenth time I've made this bodice, so I didn't change anything. I did add a couple of small front pleats to the skirt because I wanted it to mirror the pleats on the bodice. It is a skosh tight because everything is a skosh tight on me right now, and this will hopefully be remedied soon.

For this version I decided to line the top of the dress, since I hate the facing that comes with the pattern and stitching or binding round the neck and sleeves would detract from the look I was going for. I found a tutorial for attaching the lining to the zip tape by machine, and I like the way it looks SO much more than slipstitching. I still had to hand stitch the lining at the waist, but anything to cut down on the tedium. I then hand stitched down one side of the split, all along the hem and back up the other side of the split which took FOREVER so well done on cutting down that tedium there, Jen.

(It took me FOUR attempts to get decent photos of this dress. My camera suffered a knocking-over incident during a power cut, and I thought I'd got away with only a slightly damaged tripod, but after getting made up and dressed up three times and coming back with blurry images each time despite messing with ALL the settings, I had to face up to the fact that there was something wrong. My camera doesn't have autofocus in the body so I assumed the damage was in the lens, which turned out to be the case after I tested it with my wide angle. Luckily replacing a kit lens isn't that expensive, so I ordered a new one and normal photo-taking service can resume.)

I don't feel too guilty about having made something this unnecessary. I've been a very restrained dressmaker so far and never made a party dress that wasn't intended for a specific party, so I think I can give myself a pass on this one. The shorter version would have been more versatile, but also would have made me sad because I wanted this. Hopefully someone will throw an obnoxiously formal Christmas party this year, or I can just wear it on Christmas day like a twat. Why not? 

Look at me being all dramatic in the momentarily-cooperative wind. Nice.