Our choir is singing Handel Messiah for Christmas this year. Note: I am not that great of a singer, but I enjoy being in the choir. This production is not the WHOLE choir, just those that volunteer. So I volunteered...not realizing how HARD these pieces are. All I could think of was the Hallelujah Chorus, I figured this would be a great opportunity of learn how to sing it correctly. Oooooh weee! There are a couple of other chorus' we will be doing. Thank God for YouTube.
Anyway, we are black formal dresses with a single strand of pearls. Cool, easy...I have both. Well I tried on the dress I already have last week. I was just going to make a bolero jacket to wear with it...but after trying it on, I realized...I need to make another dress. The one I have is not quite church appropriate, just a little tooooo low cut in the front. Sure, if I was a "B" cup I could get away with it, BUT...NOT!
So, it's on to plan "B". While I was looking for patterns for the jacket I saw this dress. I plan on altering the pattern so the the back is not as low and I will not be sewing the drape onto it.
Perfect....EASY! Just so happen JoAnn's had their Vogue patterns on sale for $3.99 Saturday. So I was lucky enough to get the only, the last of this pattern they had in the drawer.
While I was there, I looked at fabric. The pattern calls for fabric with a 4-way stretch. I did not want to sequins or anything shinny so I looked at velvet. They had a few options of crushed velvet, that was very reasonable ($5.99-$9.99) that also happened to be 40% off. But I did not like the look of them. They had that cheezy "renaissance fair" look to them. After about 30 minutes wandering up and down the aisle, I rand across a beautiful stretch velvet. The bolt said $7.99 AND it was on sale. Perfect...almost too perfect right? Right! Got up to the cutting table with it and um yeah too perfect! It was about a yard and a half of stretch velvet that was on the wrong bolt. :-/ The fabric that I wanted was $16.99 and that was all they had of it in black. Well, at least I figured out what kind of fabric I wanted to make the dress out of, so it was not a complete fail. Oh and I got my pattern.
Later in the week I went to Hancock's to see what they had. I love the fabric at Hancock's, I always find what I'm looking for (plus a few of things I did not know I was looking for). LOL Not only did they have the stretch velvet I wanted it was $14.99 AND 50% off!!! I plan on lining it with tricot.
Love it when a plan comes together! I wanted to cut out the dress that night, but did not get a chance to. Which is probably a good thing. In the meantime, I thoroughly read the directions and I've been reading a few articles on sewing velvet.
