WIWOW - The Selfish Edition"

It's time for another edition of "What I'm Working on Wednesday," courtesy of Cute2Carry!

This week was all about moi! As I've said before, I don't get to sew as much for myself as I would like, and when I do, it doesn't always turn out well.

But dammit, I wanted a dress. Something lose, comfortable, and somewhat trendy. My local JoAnn Fabrics had a sale last weekend that included McCall's patterns for 99 cents, so I went shopping.

And after scouring the pattern book and dismissing patterns for the usual reasons (too young, too old, too frumpy, too much work....), I came up with this:

Notice the words "contemporary" and "trendsetting." Not two words I would usually associate with my wardrobe. No, my wardrobe mainly consists of workout wear or t-shirts, tank tops, shorts and flip flops. In the winter months (winter being a relative term...it is AZ afterall), substitute jeans for shorts.

I love all these short, flirty dresses. I have skinny legs, so shorter usually works better for me. But...I have broad shoulders, so this type of top kind of scared me. I don't want to look like a linebacker. I was also scared by the fact that this was a Hillary Duff pattern. I mean really....I'm a 30-something mom, not a 15 yr old mall rat. And this "flowy and loose" style of dress....when you're in a certain age range, you have to be careful. If things are too loose, people start asking about due dates and stuff.

But hey, the pattern was 99 cents.

Not wanting to spend a lot on something that might not look good, I picked fabric (with help from my fellow fabric-aholic, Tracey) off the clearance rack. And wouldn't you know it....the clearance fabrics were an additional 50% off. Since the fabric was 60 inches wide, I only needed 1 1/2 yards. So at $5/yd + an additional 50% off, I only paid $3.75 for the fabric.

Grand Total for this project: less than $5. Can't beat that!

So how did it turn out? See for yourself!

[Disclaimer about this picture: I had just spent 2 hours at the pool in the hot sun, I have on no makeup, and I'm pretty sure I didn't even run a brush through my hair today. In other words, just a regular day! And my 7 yr old took the pic for me.]

I originally wanted to do the version of this dress that didn't include the ruffle on the bottom. I just feel a little too old for ruffles. But I did a major oops. The dress with the ruffle is View A and the dress without ruffles is View B. So the cutting line at the bottom of View A is shorter than View B, since you'll be adding the ruffle to the bottom. Well, I didn't pay attention to what I was doing and accidentally cut out View A. So I had to add the ruffle to make it long enough.

But instead of the three pieces you put together to make the ruffle, I only used two...making it more of a "flounce" and less of a "ruffle." For a $5 dress, it works.

I think I'll be making this pattern again, paying extra attention to my cutting lines this time!