FINISHED! A Wintery Robe Monique

I'm on a Republic du Chiffon thing at the moment. Today it's my second pattern, Robe Monique. 

I have been thinking about this dress for a long time. The fabric that the dress is made up on the RdC website is so beautiful it's hard not be to taken by it and Julie from one of my favourite blogs (Jolies Bobines) also made up a gorgeous one in YSL fabric no less!   For me, I've been dreaming about a winter version made out of velvet. 

I found some 'velvet like' fabric at Addicted to Fabric which I thought would be perfect. It has a lovely feel to it. You know the sort where you just want to keep stroking it. It's quite like velvet, but sadly it hangs a bit stiff.  It's called Carbine and is 40% Polyester 60% Viscose (Style: 70021314). 

I clearly hadn't really thought this through. While this fabric is nice to run your hands up and down, it isn't that nice to sew and it definitely doesn't want to go anywhere near an iron!  I sewed most of this up with my walking foot.

The pattern is in French and when I bought the fabric thought this was going to be an easy pattern as it only has 3 pieces. I somehow didn't read that the top part is also lined (in a quite ingenious way by the way), so it was going to require a little bit more effort that I had originally planned.  The instructions are pretty clear even to a non French speaker. The diagrams are pretty self explanatory

I traced the pattern out at a social sewing afternoon (this is the best I can do at social sewing as I'm too busy chatting to actually sew anything).  Cut out the fabric, found some silk habotai in my stash that I thought would be ok for the lining and got underway. I then proceeded to do every single step at least twice, sometimes, like the damned hem 3 times (but we'll come back to the hem in a minute).

The pattern calls for 5 tabs on each arm but I ended up cutting 6 and extending the arm ever so slightly so that it ends just after my elbow. I also wanted the gaps to be slightly smaller. I measured out the gaps meticulously but they aren't perfect. I redid these a few times, but in the end I'm relying on the fact that I'm constantly moving and that my arms won't stay still long enough for anyone to get out their ruler and measure them up.  The gaps in the photos is also quite deceiving, the dress never sits perfectly.

I ended up taking an inch off the length off the tabs in order to bring the dress in a bit. It is still a bit big across the shoulders, which I'd fix next time. Sadly the drape (or lack thereof) of the fabric makes it quite bulky and probably not very flattering.  

The top is lined to hide the tabs and also to provide a nice hem to the sleeves.  I understitched everywhere I could to ensure that the lining doesn't roll out.  I haven't attached the bottom of the lining to the dress, I think I'll see how it goes.

The biggest annoyance with this dress is the hem.  Even looking at these photos it is driving me crazy. Last night I hand stitched the hem, folding 2 inches then another 2 inches (maybe a bit short). After taking the photos this morning though I was horrified at how ugly the hem looked.  Thinking maybe it was because there was 2 layers.  I cut off 2 inches, overlocked and then handstitched again.  I'm still not happy. I still think it looks a bit heavy. It's not the hand stitiching - which barely picks up a thread. Maybe it's the iron print of the hem?  I contemplated attaching some binding and hand sewing that on, but to say I'm over the dress right now is a bit of an understatement.  Do you ever make something that you like thinks looks ok, only to find the photos pick up a flaw you didn't realise was there?

There is so much of this dress that I like. The 'gladiator sandal' sleeves are so not me that I like them for it, it's a bit 60s-esque and of course any dress that I can wear with these ankle boots I love. I know it will get a run as a date night dress and well, we'll see what happens with the hem.