A Completed Emery Dress

I have joined the party!

Meet my latest make - Emery. I did make this a few weeks back so I have got a lot of wear out of this especially at the games and laterally at the festival. A little fox pas though - at the time of making this dress I did not realise how much it resembled the school tunic of Glasgow academy....

Outside St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh

So following in the footsteps of my philatelists dress, this is the Glasgow Academy dress. Usage strictly limited to weekends and halowe'en. Heh.

Lurking the close - Well as it is an emery I had to get a Dolly Clacket esque shot outside the door :p

I bought the fabric back in April at Sherringham market in the pretty Norfolk town where me and the other half went on holiday - to visit where he grew up. I'm not really sure what the composition is but I melted a little bit of the inner waistband when I was presing it so there's at least a good %age of polyester in there... it was also all kinds of stretchy which made it a pain to sew.

I've read a few places that the bodice of the emery was a little short and sure enough after making a muslin (:O:O:O (only of the bodice though)) that it was indeed a little short. I also didn't like how high the neckline sat so edited the pattern to remove a small slice starting at the botton of the shoulder and along to the centre front.

After adding a little bit of length at the lengthen/shorten lines allowed the bodice to hit my waist

I didn't fancy the bow or the collar so made up the dress with none of the options but made sure to keep the inseam pockets. Im not sure I could wear this style with no pockets they're so darn handy! They're the perfect size for keys and a phone (both were totally in my pockets while taking photos) and are so effortlessly hidden within the fabric of the skirt when you're wearing the dress.

there was a slight offset occurred when hand stitching the waist - im not gonna lie you can notice it when worn but meh the front looks good!!

I'm thinking the back of this dress is still a little broad so the next time I'm going to either make the top back darts a little bigger or maybe cut the size down and only use 1/2 inch seams - does anyone have any thoughts on this fitting issue?

Added bonus - the zip lined up!

I really like the pattern for this dress - it really lends itself to large prints so much so I have another one ready to go - once the back issue is sorted!

The only thing i would do differently next time is to shorten the hem by about an inch so I don't have to take such a large hem.

Has anyone else made up the emery dress?

Also while i'm here I have a couple of shots of the cat print bronte I posted last week

Another photo lurking around next to St Mary's

This one is a little far out but I think it's just possible to see that the fit is prety good.

A slightly closer shot the top is a little loose around the waist but then - thats how she wanted it!

Have a good week guys
JCS