Building Block Dresses 1 & 2

This year for Christmas I received a sewing pattern I've had my eye on for a while, The Building Block Dress from Oliver + S. It's actually more of a book than a single pattern. The beauty of this book is that it guides you through the process of altering a pattern in endless ways. You start with the basic pattern, or your building block, and make various alterations to it to design an entirely different dress. I could sew over 60,000 dress styles using the basic pattern and the alteration ideas in this book. Some options are simple, like adding on-seam pockets, while others change the look of the dress entirely. I kind of want to work my way through the book changing one thing at a time (first testing out the different sleeve variations, then moving on the silhouette, pockets, necklines and collars, closures, hemlines, and linings) but Natalie and Samantha have absolutely no need for that many dresses.

For my first attempt at sewing the Basic Dress I ignored the advice in the book, and my own experience, and cut into the fabric without first making a muslin, or practice dress. The purpose of a muslin is to help you fine tune the fit and make any necessary pattern adjustments with cheapo muslin instead of learning the hard way with nice fabric. I took Natalie's measurements and commented on the strange fact that her chest measurement - the most important one for this dress -  was equivalent to a size 6 but she would need a size 10 for the dress to be long enough on her tall, skinny frame. I decided to take a chance and sew it up in the 10 with the thinking that length mattered most to me, and that the bodice wouldn't be too terribly big. Basically, I was just excited to start sewing and wanted to get to the finished product already and wasn't willing to take the extra step of muslin making. Patience is a virtue but it's not one I've entirely embraced yet. Especially when it comes to sewing.

As you can probably guess, Building Block Dress Take 1 was, with the exception of the length, entirely too big. The bodice just hung on Natalie's tiny frame and looked silly. As luck would have it, Samantha is just a touch taller than Natalie but is otherwise built entirely differently and the size 10 without any changes fits her well. Maybe a teensy bit shorter than I'd like, but a good fit otherwise.  And she almost willingly agreed to model the finished product for me!

I may not be patient, but I can learn from my mistakes so I tried again but this time I made some adjustments. I decided to go totally off the pattern this time, tracing the dress in sizes 8, 10, and 12. The bodice is a size 8 with a size 10 length because I didn't want it to be too wide but I also didn't want it to be high waisted. The skirt was also a size 8 in the waist measurement but I used the size 12 length.  I laid out the bodice, collar, and cuff pieces and got everything cut out. It wasn't until I was ready to cut the skirt pieces that I realized that I didn't have enough fabric to actually make a skirt. Again, my impatience came shining through and foiled my plans.  

So I made lemonade out of lemons and decided to sew Natalie a Building Block Peplum Top instead! Luckily I still had enough contrasting fabric to add an external hem facing to the bottom of the top. Even though I have yet to make an actual successful version of this pattern, I know that I'm going to like the process of learning new sewing skills and creating more dresses for my girls.