Finished Project: Milly Wedding Guest Dress

If you'll recall, I left off with this dress having completed it but not being 100% pleased with the final product. The skirt is made from a piece of Milly silk that I snapped up from the remnants bin a little while back and this dress was my first time working with silk. The main part I wasn't pleased about on the final dress was the hem.

hem results

Here's what went down, as I'd previously reported:

This silk is so freakin' bouncy and buoyant and light and perky that it will not make a nice crease to save its life. I'm not used to working with silk but that perkiness was not an issue until I decided to hand-stitch a 3-inch hem. Also, though you can't see the actual thread on the right side of the hem from my stitching, you can see little dents from it. Damned shiny, sensitive silk. :( It doesn't look horrible IRL, but it makes me feel like foolish riff-raff who neither understands how nor deserves to work with nice material.

Well, after reaching out for suggestions (thank you all for your responses!), I was reluctant to un-do the hem I'd already sewn and was considering either continuing to press the hem to death to make it stop being poofy, or suck it up and re-do a much smaller hem.

What actually ended up happening?

I tucked the dress away in the closet, planning to revisit it before the wedding, and then promptly forgot about it.

the finished dress

That's right, I didn't end up making any changes to the completed dress after all.  However, if I were to sew the same thing again, I'd definitely do the smallest hem possible, as well as probably cut the bodice a size smaller (since it's cotton sateen with stretch to it), line at least the bodice, and cut the pink collar strips shorter and on the bias so that they fold over the curved neckline better and the tie isn't as long and floppy.

Changes I made to the pattern - New Look 6910:

1. Gathered skirt (via Gertie's tutorial), not pleated
2. Made gatheres at the top and little pleats in the bottom of the cap sleeves - they looked like little wings, IRL before. This little trick was inspired by Gillian's sleeves on her Peony.
3. Drafted a pink collar inspired by the Beverly dress.
4. Didn't add pockets like the above photo makes it look, but should have!

All in all, I'd say the dress was a success! I got some nice compliments at the wedding and the (...interesting) DJ even dedicated a song to me out of the blue, while mentioning my dress - hah! The song was the American Bandstand theme song, which I had no idea how to dance to, but oh well. Tom and I gave it our best fake 30 second swing dance and then discreetly left the dance floor.

Tom and I dancing to another song

There is a definite sock-hop-ish feel to the dress, which isn't a bad thing, but it's definitely... a thing! I'd originally styled it with a wide black belt at the waist and some retro heels, but ended up opting more for comfort and lost the belt before the end of the evening and didn't even make it out of the hotel room without switching to flats.

Styled with heels and a belt

Now that I've finished my wedding guest dress sewing, I almost don't know what to do with myself! "Almost" being the key word there. I'm making slow, lazy progress on my Simplicity 2154 blouse and may or may not be planning a (already anticipated to be belated) birthday shirt for Tom's birthday later this month. Luckily, Tom's brother is getting married in June 2013, so I'm not without future dress planning to do...even if it is a way into the future.