Vogue 1221 DKNY dress

I generally enjoy making DKNY patterns that typically have unusually shaped pattern pieces and are fun to put together but this one annoyed me no end and it took an age to get the motivation to finish it.

Things that annoyed me making this;

• Until the front seam is sewn there is a lot of fabric in the front pieces with bits sticking out which seemed to get twisted up just by looking at them.
• The back has a full facing but the front just has an armscye facing which has a tendency to flip out.
• As is typical with these designs you can't really get a sense of how it is going to fit until late in the process.  Of course that is what muslins are for so I shouldn't complain.
• I really wish Vogue instructions would tell you when to finish a seam, it's hard to work out the order myself in unique patterns like this.  As it is I have 2 small seams on the inside of the front bodice which I've had to leave unfinished.  I don't think the fabric will fray and I suppose I could go back and cover them with ribbon or something, but it's still annoying.
• Getting the front drape and skirt pleats to sit nicely takes a bit of fiddling around - I don't know yet how the dress will fare in a real life outing that lasts longer than 5 minutes and involves moving around.  I think I will roadtest it this weekend.
• Hand hemming stretch cotton is no fun!

Anyway enough complaining,  here is the dress, it was impossible to get it to look right on my dressform which leads me to conclude that you need hips to wear this dress.  No shortage of those on me!

Other than my gripes above the dress was actually quite straightforward to make.  I made my usual size 12, 14 at the hips.  I needed to raise the neckline about an inch.  I didn't alter the length at all but clearly my legs are considerably shorter than those of the model.

(And for Daudau, there is no email in your profile to contact you directly, but yes I do live in HK, the pics from my birthday were taken at Pacific Place).