Chloe Redux

I may have mentioned before that Victory Patterns' Chloe dress is one of my favourites. This is my third one, and I think it's my favourite.

Photos are a bit dark, sorry, it's still winter.

I was very inspired by this skirt from Anthro. But since I find skirts very difficult to wear, I opted to make a dress version. New ideas for the Chloe pattern had been swirling around in my head, and this seemed like the perfect combination. And, I had a large piece of olive linen in my stash, just begging to be cut into.

Alright, now for the nitty gritty. I didn't get around to posting about my first sleeveless Chloe, so I'll share with you now. This pattern fit me really well out of the envelope (or fresh off the printer, I should say - side note - I'm very happy that Victory Patterns are available in paper form now!) I shortened the bodice by 3/4" as usual, as well as sticking with my lengthening of the skirt by 4". Other bloggers have noticed that the sleeveless version leaves a quite low armhole, and I would agree. Some have taken the excess out at the shoulder, but the darts were in a good spot for me and I didn't want them getting too high. I was happy with where the sleeve sat at the underarm in my first attempt, so I raised the armhole using the sleeve as a guide. I added width to the back shoulder at the armhole as well, to make sure bra straps would be covered at all times.

It's really tricky to see in this photo, but because I liked the way the princess seams sat on my back, I just made a small angled seam towards the armhole to accommodate the additional width at the upper back.

And yes, I even remembered to take some construction photos, if you are interested in seeing how I handled the lace panel.

Lovely lace close up.

After measuring the front panel, I was relieved to find that I would only need a piece 18"wide by 36" long. A good thing, since this lace was exactly 36" wide! I shopped around, but lace is always expensive, so $30 for half a yard it was. 

First, I soaked the lace in Eucalan and laid it flat to dry. I'm not sure how I'll be washing this dress in future, but a pre-wash seemed like a good idea. And you don't need to rinse with Eucalan, so there was minimal wear and tear on my precious lace.

I marked the hem fold line on the the right side of my front panel linen, then positioned the lace on top, lining up the border with the chalk line. I basted horizontally, and along the edges. Then I trimmed off the bottom selvedge of the lace and serged the two fabrics together.

Upside down! Oops.

I proceeded to put the dress together as normal,  and when I got to the hem, (machined), I was able to lift the lace out of the way and start and stop my stitching right at the edge of the front panel

Hem close-up!

If you look very closely, you can see the machine hem stitches.

So there you have it, one more Chloe for Chloe. As I've said before, it was a match just meant to be.

Let's hear it for the tried and true patterns!