Monday 28 January 2013

Smart Casual Mila

Yesterday I finished sewing the hooks & eyes, as the finishing touch, to my Mila dress.  After a wash 'n dry I was able to wear it to work today.  What do you think?

(excuse the no shoes - I couldn't wait to get them off my feet after a day at the office!)



You can most certainly tell I've been in the office today - the crinkles in the front, noticeable in the lighter solid colour, are a definite give away.


As mentioned in my earlier Mila post, this was the first time I had downloaded a pattern from www.burdastyle.com for printing at home.  It felt quite strange working from a heavier photocopier paper rather than the usual pattern tissue.  I almost felt like I was damaging my pins.

It was a bit of a funny pattern really.  Usually I just choose a pattern size according to my bust measurement and make an adjustment for my hips and I am good to go.  So I did the same with this pattern, but after the first fitting I had to remove at least 4 inches evenly from the two side seams and back seam (as I had already constructed the front panel).   I also removed about 1 inch from the should seams.  

The front has a inner layer, which you can't see in my pictures, but this inner layer was really, really low - so much so that you could see my bra in my first fitting.  I wasn't able to change this too much but I did manage to raise it so it is a little bit more respectable for the office.  The pattern concept was a good one, but it didn't really pull it off.

I went back to the pattern website to revisit the pictures of the sample dress, and I now see that the front bust area on the this dress (below) are the same as mine - see how her black bra is peeking out the top of the dress.  Luckily I have managed to close the outer layer of my dress more than the picture below so as not to have too much cleavage showing.

After much wiggling and fitting I have a fit that I am happy with.  If I got to do the front all over again I would reconsider the placement of the darts and perhaps separate the front bust pattern piece from the placket so I didn't have to sew a 90 degree angle into the dress, didn't enjoy that part at all.

After wearing the dress for a day I am feeling better about it than when I first tried it on.  I can definitely see this dress being worn over and over and over this summer.

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