Vogue 1258 Vena Cava Dress

Thank you everyone for the comments on my Burda dress, I'm still waiting for their phone call, must be problems with the time difference or something....

Having had success with 2 pleats and pockets I have gone the whole hog and made a dress with lots of pleats and pockets, this Vena Cava dress from Vogue's recent releases.

Erica B recently made this and wisely said;

"I like that the skirt tapers off to the hem. This creates a VERY body-conscious silhouette. And the pockets and pleating draws the eyes straight to the hips. So if you're not good with your hips, thighs and butt, walk away from this pattern"


She was not kidding!  My first thoughts when I cut the pattern tissue out were "how on earth are these pieces going to fit on 2 yards of fabric" (they do) closely followed by "how on earth is this back piece going to cover my backside" (only just) and "is it even possible to walk in this" (yes).  The stretch takes care of the walking, but my side seams are swinging to the back a bit, in retrospect one size up at the back would have been a good idea.  (This is a 12, no fitting adjustments).





Not very imaginatively I used a purple ITY jersey, you can see the true colour in these dressform photos below.  I didn't take a photo of the whole dress on the dressform because it looks ridiculous!

I made a couple of minor changes:

• I raised the neckline by about an inch, this is easy to do, just sew up the centre front seam a bit higher
• I left off the topstitching on the sleeve bands.  My thread is not a great colour match, I was impressed with my edgestitching on the bands and thought topstitching was pushing my luck frankly!
• I shortened the ties significantly, they come down to the hem of the dress which looked a bit odd on me.  Erica B tied hers at the back which is another way of dealing with them.

This is quite a different style for me having bypassed the whole tulip skirt trend and I am still getting used to the shape, but it is a really comfortable, yet dressy dress.  I'm a little self conscious about my hips and something about the pockets is not quite hanging right at the lower opening so I may go back and try and fix that.  Anyway enough chat, here are some more photos: