Turquoise Lace Shift Dress from Simplicity 1457

Turquoise Lace Shift Dress from Simplicity 1457

Fabric

About a month ago, I spent a few days in the Dallas area.  Jan from BessieMary suggested a few fabric stores in the area.  I fell in love with Fabrique Fabrics in Plano (one of Jan's suggestions).  I could live in that store!  I bought these pieces of fabric, turquoise stretch lace and chiffon lining, plus a few more........

Usually these two fabric types are a little fussy to sew, but I had no problems with these.  I used my serger for all the seams.  I attached the lining to the fashion fabric and I was able to see straight through the dress.  I didn't even question my daughter on her thoughts, but called up Fabrique Fabrics and ordered another yard for a slip.

Pattern

I knew in my mind what I wanted this dress to look like.  Straight with the hem of the dress and sleeves in the selvedge.  So, I dug through my pattern choices and Simplicity 1457 was the closest thing I could find.  

The pattern has a yoke, but I combined it with the dress and cut as one piece in the front and back.  The sleeves were cute cap sleeves, but I wanted my selvedge used, so I cut the sleeve using the cap from the pattern and letting the selvedge fill in at the bottom of the cap sleeve.

Since I was using a stretch fabric, I used a size 8 in width, but a size 16 in length!!!!  This is one short dress!!!!!

Can you believe I used this pattern for my lace dress?

Construction

1.  Joined the shoulder seams of the fashion fabric and then the lining.

2.  Joined the necklines of the fabric and lining.

3.  Added the sleeves to the fabric and lining.

4.  Side seam and sleeve underarm seam.

5.  Pick stitched the neckline to keep the fabric from stretching and the lining from peeking out.

6.  Cut another dress from the lining (front and back) and serged those pieces together for the slip.

Turquoise may be her color!

Back view

With the slip, you can't see through the dress.

"Hem" of the dress. (No sewing)

Slip 

When I took these pictures, I realized my "little" girl is not so "little" anymore.........