Saturday, August 11, 2012

The Downton Dress.

Are you guys watching Downton Abbey?
You should.
It's a Masterpeice Classic show (comes on PBS) about English Manor life in the early 1900s.  It is *fantastic*.  
It also has the best wardrobe selection of any show I've seen in a long time.  Rivals Mad Men, in fact, for inspiring fashion revolution.  The beaded gowns and silks and minute details, and, oh dear.

I've been so struck by this show that I wanted to make myself a Downton Dress.  But the awesomely vintage-y fabric I picked up on sale wasn't quite enough to make a frock for myself, so the Kenzie girl once again got the new dress.  Lucky duck.  

Without tooting my own horn too too much, this dress is both super cute, and surprisingly well-made.  It's entirely lined, with almost all seams hidden inside the two layers.  Those that face out are french seams.  It's been washed twice now and nothing has frayed or split or unraveled.  Yay- I think I'm finally getting better!



 The bodice is sleeveless, with subtle flutters to the edges.  I did a pleat in the front, as well as princess seams.  And added three super cute frosted grey bauble buttons from my grandmother's stash.



But the back is what I really love.  A circle cutout!  I did that! ;)
It closes with three more of the grey frosted buttons, and a giant vintage wooden button at the top.  The inside is lined with contrasting fabrics- the bottom section is grey and the top is the peachy flowered print.


The bottom is hemmed with a scalloped edge, mirroring the dark brown lines in the fabric.  It also has a slight drop waist with some elastic inside to give it a bit of shape.  


Despite this expression, my girl loves it.  She also loved dressing for these pictures, as she got to wear mommy's fascinator and red lipstick.  I'm pretty darn jealous of the getup....



Here you can see a peek of the contrasting lining.  And a peek of the very rare MacKenzie angel.  




I'm working on a jacket now with a similar turn-of-the-century feel.  It is coming along swimmingly.  Too bad it, too, is child sized.

I need to wise up in my fabric purchasing!

We are now off to get the girl's soccer skills assessed for the upcoming season.  This should be interesting.  Wonder how upset she'll be when she learns tap shoes and dresses aren't allowed on the field....


1 comment:

  1. Wow! Scalloped edge hem and a circle cut out! Amazing techniques all in the same dress. Good job!

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