Vogue V1046 Anna Sui The Bohemian Dress

This garment has a lot of ease, this could be good or bad, depending on the fabric you use. After seeing the voluminous View A I have to admit, I didn't think View B would be as roomy. Either way I went with very light fabric, georgette for the dress, China Silk for the lining. I'm not sure I could have gone for a lighter weight without going to chiffon.

So let's talk ease, (8" hip, 7" bust for a size 16), I don't mind the ease and because the fabric is very lightweight if I feel it's too much I can add a pleat or gathering somewhere to make it seem less voluminous. Also remember that I have starched the georgette, so it has more body that it started with, I'm hoping it will deflate with wear.

It's pretty cute.

I almost like it better from the back.

So the challenges....

Front slit

I was not confident of the treatment of the front slash neckline, there is no stabilizer in the pattern, and there's nothing worse than trying to repair a sheer fabric seam, so I took another direction. I made a 1" facing, layer of interfacing and china silk, and hand overcast the edges, it turned out really well.

Learning to look at the pattern envelope with a critical eye is important here. I had noticed that the neckline does not lie flat.

This is because the tie  binding strip is cut on the straight instead of on the bias. I had my doubts going in but went ahead giving the pattern the benefit of the doubt. If I can salvage some bias from the scraps I will go back in and remove the section around the neckline and replace it with a bias strip. The neckline itself is also smaller on the pattern than the pattern envelope garment.

If I wear it open in the front, the binding is less of an issue.

Also, I had added 1 1/2" in the length to the original pattern.

Update: The neckline was bothering me, so I went ahead and changed the binding to bias, and studied the neckline a bit more. Here's what I found.

The neckline is lower and a touch wider on the envelope pic vs. the pattern.

Overall a cute little dress for summer, very lightweight, and lined in china silk, it feels scrumptious, but the pattern does have it's issues!!