Long Time No Sew…. Two Day Ruby Dress!

Hello hello,

the title of this blog post says it all really; it has been a really long time since I sewed anything, and I was really missing it! But I have had assignments to do (and still do actually), and was feeling very uninspired by what material and patterns I had, even though I still have my vintage pledge to do….

As I was scrolling through facebook yesterday morning, I happened across a post by ‘Love Sewing’, giving away their Ruby dress pattern for free, for a week! Driven by my love of free things, I immediately downloaded it, and while procrastinating one of my many assignment tasks, printed it out. And then put it together. And then cut out the fabric. And then sewed it. And before I knew what was happening, I had a half installed zip, and very very sleepy eyes.

At every stage, I was fully intending on letting it go, putting it into a pile to finish another day. But it just never happened! And I am so proud of myself!

I was going to take a photo at each stage but I forgot (as per usual), so I will just talk you through my process. I omitted the front and back facings as I didn’t have enough fabric, and one of the back pieces of skirt had to be sewn together as there wasn’t enough to cut one nice big piece unfortunately. It is a bit messy, but it is at the back, so I think I will be fine! The material I used is a little mysterious; I think it was my Nana’s but I’m not sure; my mother was using it to clean or cover something while redecorating, but I thought it was much to pretty to be a cleaning cloth so I rescued it. It is very worn, and in places it has holes, so I will, at some point, go round and cover up the holes with extra fabric or something.

I think the fabric choice looks very similar to the one in the thumbnail of the Love Sewing post. But I had this material in mind, and I am so happy that I used it! This is what it looked like last night, with the zip half installed. The fit is so good, I am so pleased! I graded from a size 10 on the top, to a size 12 on the bottom.

I was just hemming the arm holes and casually looked in my diary and realised I had a meal to go to with my knitting society, which I had completely forgotten about. So I didn’t hem the bottom of the dress; I think I may try and find some lace or something to add a little bit of length. You can see my slip poking out the bottom, oops! At least I wasn’t flashing anyone!

I did look a little over-dressed for a Chinese buffet, but hey, I made my dress myself, that is reason enough to wear it!