How Does Your Garden Grow? - Vogue 9112

I'm a little late in completing my MAGAM Challenge for May this year.  But hey, with a theme like "Mad May", it required a little more time with added, self-inflicted frustration.  There is a reason the pattern envelope for Vogue 9112 says "Unsuitable for obvious diagonals" - but that didn't stop me from giving it a try.  Here's the finished product - I am super duper happy with it.

This is not my normal, fitted dress - but something roomy and flowy with a fabulous collar!  I was skeptical upon starting this dress knowing how roomy it was going to be, but, what the heck, I thought I would give it a try.

I started with my usual pencil drawing to determine a basic layout:

From there, things just started to fall into place.  I knew I wanted to incorporate bias piping into the dress somehow to accent the fabric I used for the collar.  So using some green and blue quilting cotton, combined with a cut-off from an old prom dress alteration, I cut bias strips and sewed the two pieces together off-setting them by 1/8".  When sewn into the seam allowances, it created the effect I was after:

Having sewn the dress together, I wasn't happy with how the front panel looked.  It just looked a bit plain to me.

I loved the collar though.  The pattern calls for just one collar piece to be turned and sewn along the edges.  I decided to double the collar and add some orange piping between the two.  I love how it turned out.

The side looked ok.

The back looked fabulous!

Just look at how well those plaid lines match up on the center back seam!  I'll go ahead and pat myself on the back right now for that!

I had quite a bit of the double bias trim left over so I decided to start experimenting.  And I came up with making some interchangable flowers for the front.

Aren't they cute!!  I added some ribbon to make the stems of the flowers.

 And a fun little stacked button flower for the collar.

The cool thing about the flowers - you can remove them for washing and bonus - you can move them around to rearrange your bouquet!

Here's a quick tutorial on how to make the snap-on flowers:

First - start with a piece of felt and the double bias strips already sewn together.

Turn under the starting edge and start sewing the bias strip in a circular motion.  You will start with the outside circle and work your ways towards the center:

 Keep sewing and turning until you get to the size you desire.

Turn under the ending edge and finish your circle flower.

Trim the felt from the back:

And sew on a button to the front and a snap to the back and you are finished.  Helpful hint -  I found it easier to sew on the snap first and then the button.

I'm super happy with this dress.  I had doubts to start with given it's roomy factor, but I think it turned out super cute!  And it's a stash buster as well!

For this dress I used 2.75 yards of a Robert Talbott shirting cotton purchased from his store in Carmel Valley, CA a few years ago.  I'll guesstimate another 1 yard for the bias strips and collar piece for a total of 3.75 yards for this dress.  This brings the YTD total up to 48.625 yards!

Happy sewing everyone!

Star