Simplicity 8125 - Wearability: FAIL

I love the idea of Simplicity 8125. It's an adorable 1960's empire-waist update of the classic Butterick Walk-Away Dress (Butterick 4790). It's clever. It's forgiving on my post-baby body. It's quick and easy to make, and requires only fabric, thread and a little bit of ribbon for the hidden back ties - no interfacing, bias tape, buttons or zippers. And it's reversible! You just cut out the pieces, sew the front darts, match the two layers up and sew all the way around, leaving a little opening to turn them right side out. Even with a one-month old baby hanging on me all day and night I managed to make it in just a week or two. That's pretty quick for me!

The fabric was a remnant of the fabric I used to make a shower curtain. Ok, in truth I didn't have quite enough of a remnant for the dress so I raided the bathroom for the shower curtain. It was a lot easier to find another shower curtain I liked than to track down more of this fabric from JoAnn's two or three years ago! The fabric is a sheer white with white flowers of varying degrees transparency. This was my first time working with a semi-sheer fabric. I had to be extra careful finishing the big dart because it was visible through the sheer parts of the fabric. I used a screaming orange broadcloth for the reverse. I really like the way the sheer mutes the orange and the orange makes the floral pop. Unfortunately the fabric combination is the only redeeming feature of this little sewing experiment.

The dress was absolutely adorable on my dressform. The two hidden ties (at the underarm and hip) held the front of the dress in a lovely skimming A-line shape on Barbie. The wide ties give the bust a little definition while letting the back piece hang smoothly from the mid-back, skimming over the big ol' butt. On the dressform I was a little concerned about the really deep armhole. Even when the front and back pieces were tied tightly at the bust, the armhole created by the overlapped pieces looked like it would be deep enough to show an inch or two of bra under the arm.

The trouble began when I wore the dress. Before I was even done with the picture-taking, the dress was starting to shift around. The deep scoop neck allows the shoulders to shift from side to side. The under-bust ties kept the sides of the dress closed, but didn't prevent the back or front from riding up. I had it tied on pretty snugly, and it still didn't stay put. In fact I had the ties tight tight enough that when I sat down, one of the hip ties ripped right out of the seam. I did a quick repair job and headed out for a lovely Pampered Chef party hosted by my friend *A*. Pampered Chef parties wait for no one!

So my first (second? third?) clue that the dress was a disaster is that no one at the party asked me about it or commented on it (except *A*, who knew I was wearing one of my experiments). I mean really, if someone showed up in this weird orange floral dress at a gathering of crop pants, flip flops and T-shirts, wouldn't you wonder what's up? No one had the nerve to ask about it, so I'm pretty sure I was in the realm of "If you don't have something nice to say...". It's a good thing this is my Summer of Wearing What I Damn Well Please or I might have been a little self-conscious.

The real trouble with the dress began when I had to sit down. The deep armholes allowed the shoulders to pop up and then flop forward, gaping at the neckline. Then when I stood up the back of the dress stayed pulled forward, making the back hemline higher than the front. I spent the whole evening with various parts of my bra showing, tugging at the dress to get it back to where it belonged. So annoying!

This dress is bad enough that it must evolve or perish. I still like the fabric combination very much. I'm going to do a little creative chopping to try to make an empire-waist dress that works, if I can make the armhole and bust fit snugly enough. If that doesn't work I'll default to a simple skirt so I can still enjoy the fabric.

This picture is from a couple of weeks ago, when Henry was about one month old. I can't believe he's already six weeks old! I'm halfway through my maternity leave!