Keeping it Classy

Sir, if you insist on taking pictures of me, I so kindly request you hand me my drink.

I seriously think I am missing a martini in my hand and a cigarette in the other for this shot.

Look at this dress, this dress looks amazing on me. So amazing I had to go fancy with the hair. The dress was giving the fro mad side-eye. It was not having it. NOPE!

So who is this lady that has wrapped herself around my curves. Her name is Emery. Everyone meet the Emery Dress by the lovely Christine Haynes. I have met Christine a couple of times in LA at Sew L.A. She is one of the sweetest people I have ever met, so I was happy to jump on the chance to be a pattern tester for her.

I signed up to be her size 16 pattern tester, which is my measurements give a 1/4 or 1/2 here or there and inch up or down in the waist given my food intake that week. Christine is the second pattern designer whose measurements are pretty much on point with mines. It’s like they know. They really want me making their patterns. 😉

I did make a muslin for this dress, mainly to check the bust area. Despite that I am a size 16, I should always do a FBA, but I don’t so HA!! If I were to do a FBA I would have had to make a size 10 bodice. I really did not want to do that, this dress is dart city or dart party. Yes, its a dart party. So, if any serious hiccups come about, I can throw it into a dart. I was happy to find out that the extra fabric in the armhole was not out of control and could be hidden by the sleeve.

Laughing at FBAs

Let me tell you, this dress sews up pretty fast and there is not a lot of pattern pieces to cut out, Since this dress was easy to sew up I wanted to make it extra special, so I decided to make the collar out of lace. I used Gertie’s tutorial to make the collar. I think that the lace collar really made the dress super special.

I can not actually tell you what kind of lace I used, but it did hold up well in the washer machine. Underneath the lace I used a bronze colored silk organza, that I was informed simmered in the light. I still loved the look even if I didn’t get to see the simmer.

Some other features about this pattern is there is two sleeve options. I originally was going to make a 3/4 sleeve, but just cut out the shorter sleeve instead. I don’t know why but that’s what happened.

This dress also comes with an center back invisible zipper. I had planned to do a hand picked invisible zipper but time was against me, so I ended up installing the invisible zipper with my regular zipper foot. I think it did a good job, don’t know?

Not sure where that roundness came from, but maybe I should thank the wind.

When I went to show off this dress to my coworker, she just feel in love with the dress and shortly said to me, “Wait a minute! What no pockets?”

My responses was “BAM!!!” Let’s be serious here, this lady needs pockets. If all dresses had pockets I would wear them a little bit more. Pockets are my friend. The directions for installing the pockets are the best I have come across. Super easy and you don’t even notice. Best inseam pocket I have installed in my sewing career.

You definitely should try out this pattern, especially if you are into vintage inspired dresses. Even, if you are not into the vintage look you should try it. This style of dress is generally not for me, but I am not blind to see how cute it looks on my curves. I would be interested to trying this pattern again and make a size 10 in the bodice and do a FBA to get a better fit in the armhole area.

Here are some additional images from the photo shoot.

I spend most of these photo shots making faces, laughing and dorking about.

There is a lot of spider webs behind me, hurry up and take the damn shots

There were nine photos taken of me on this rock and I was not amused about it. I am no fan of spiders and did not want one getting familiar with me.

My favorite

This is my favorite picture from the photo shoot, you can gauge how silly I am just by that statement. No one else likes it, but it makes me laugh or just smile every time I see it.

So yeah, we took about 100+ pictures and most of them are of me being ridiculous or making scared smiling face. I kind of love it, despite disliking being in front of the lens.

I have a couple of other project on my plate and hope to reveal them soon. Until next time.

Oh and don’t forget to Pre-order your Emery Dress now.

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