Vogue Vena Cava V1228 Cotton Silk Broadcloth Dress

I love this dress, flirty and easy to make and wear.

It's a little too low around the neckline, as in... the bra peeks in the corners of the neckline.  The interior is finished with french seams, and it's very clean looking on the inside.  The only change I made is slip stitching the very narrow neck facing, and adding a snap to the end of the sleeve tab (instead of tucking it into the cuff), if you do the same, remember to finish the edge of the tab instead of leaving it unfinished (for a cleaner look). I left the zipper off, because it slips on relatively easily (the dress form was another issue, I just couldn't get it on her).

You could make this dress in a weekend easily.

Now to address the neckline, to raise it would mean the tuck would not fall where originally intended which may or may not be an issue for you, but on this first try, I left everything as is.  This was supposed to be my wearable muslin, and that's what they are for (tweaking).  I may go back and add some of the same fabric to the corners so I won't be checking exposure while wearing it, but the issue with that part of the neckline is that the facing is enclosed in the pleat, and the height of the pleat will be changed if you raise it.  Another solution is to take the neckline up by way of  lowering the shoulder seams.

Here is the Vogue pattern instruction.

Here is the close up on the garment.

The fabric for this project was a cotton silk blend from FabricMart, it was a pleasure to work with, it is opaque, lightweight, but with body.

I like the unusual construction of this dress, you can see the details a little better on the line drawing.  All in all a successful little pattern, and a dress that I'll get a lot of wear from.

Vogue V1258 Vena Cava Dress

After the last project, it was nice that this one was quick and relatively painless. The stretch in the ITY knit, made for some tweaking but I like the end result. This is another one of those patterns that you have to mark all the little circles and squares because the pattern pieces are unusual and it's not obvious to which seams are which. This will definitely be a date night dress.

Without spanx :)

It needs a good pressing the ties are a little puckered, but other than that I like the way the dress turned out. You'll notice on the pattern envelope, there is no sleeve but the pattern gives you a bit of a cap sleeve, I don't mind it, but just an observation.  If you want it to look like the pattern envelope you will need to adjust the sleeve piece up into the shoulder.  The pattern does not match the pic on the envelope.

The ties were very very long, so I chopped off 5", and raised the neckline 1/2", it is very comfortable.