Big floral print

I know, this is unheard of!  A second post so soon?  And about a sewing project?  All I can say is that Vogue 1250 continues to dole out the instant gratification.

I've complained before about cheap-n-cheerful rayon/lycra knit prints, but continue to get sucked into buying them if the price point and print are cheerful enough.  So I found this one at my Fabricland recently.  I am a total sucker for shades of blue-grey, teal and orange.

Feet shown for scale

If you recall from my discussion of Vogue 1250 when it first came out, two years ago (I made it twice), this dress has only three pattern pieces, and one of them is a tiny strip to face the back neck.  With a print this big, I had a choice:

Put big orange flowers right in the centre of my chest and on my skirt below crotch level (shown at left).

Or have a mainly blue-grey front, with big orange flowers at the side and back.  My very sensible choice to avoid big orange splotches on my front meant I got them on my behind!

The front, on the other hand, is very subdued except for the flower which ended up right at my belly button level!

I like it anyway.

And it goes with my recently completed Featherweight cardigan.

In making this dress, I cursed and swore at my coverstitch machine (which I haven't used enough to get very comfortable with) until discovering what most of you already know - it does so much better if you stick the hem down with Steam-a-seam.  I wonder if I can buy shares in the company that makes it?

Before cutting into my fabric today, I had it in mind to alter the dress so that the cowl was less indecently low.  However, in comparing the pattern to my second version of V1250, I realized that the problem is just that the dress has stretched tremendously in its two years of life.  At right I've lined up the back piece at the shoulder.  The pink line is where the seam should be.  The black line is where the seam on my older dress has sagged to.  I thought that knit was a little better quality, but no.  Sigh.

This knit dress is destined to be fast fashion in every sense of the word.