Breaking My Promise

Okay, so I know I promised I wasn't going to work on anything else until the BWOF trench coat is done, but I hit a snag: I ran out of interfacing!!! How could that happen? (Easily, as it turns out.)

Not wanting to waste good sewing mojo (and not being able to make it to the fabric store for at least a few days) I decided to break my promise and start working on a new project, New Look 6674:

I made a muslin of the red dress with the collar from the blue print dress. This was all to try out the pattern, which I may use for another project this spring: a Military Wrap Dress.

I first got the idea from a dress I saw on this post on The Mahogany Stylist. (Scroll down to the second picture.)

Here are a couple of other examples I found in In Style magazine:

From Diane von Furstenberg

From Jessica Simpson

(Sorry about the not-so-clear pics. I had to scan them.)

So what makes a wrap dress a "Military Wrap Dress"?

Notice all three examples (including the one in the link) have the following details in common:

Solid Color

A Collar

Breast Pockets

Hardware- Metallic Buttons

All three dresses appear to be made of woven fabric. In addition, the JS and DVF dresses have rolled sleeves with a button and tab to hold them in place. That's definately a detail I'd like to copy. The other dress (in the link) has pockets on the skirt, which I definately like; also the pockets have some lovely pleating details.

NL 6674 has none of these details (except the collar.) It's essentially a blank canvas. What it does have is the general shape of the three inspiration dresses, and it looks like an easily customizable pattern. It's also suitable for wovens , which is essential for a military styled dress.

I have completed one muslin to check for fit issues, and I have begun a second "muslin" which should fit after the adjustments I've made. This second dress should be wearable and I'll be using it to test drive the wearability (Does the neckline gape? Is the skirt overlap adequate for day to day wear?) before I put all the work in to adapt this pattern.

I'll be sharing my progress as I go along.

Oh, and one of these days, I'll have a trench coat to show!