TaMera's Christmas Dress

Merry Christmas! I am incredibly excited to share TaMera's Christmas dress with you!

The pattern is vintage mail-order pattern Sew-Rite 8238 that was originally our Grandma's. It has slight gathers where the front bodice and yoke join (I'd consider them more the shoulder straps but the pattern called it a yoke) and pleats above the waist seam for the bust shaping.

At TaMera's request I moved the zipper to center back instead of the side zipper. To cut it out without distorting the look and shape of the dress I simply cut the back bodice and back skirt as two pieces (rather than on the fold) and added 5/8 for the seam allowance at the center.

I love the ever so slight shaping at the neckline! Curved edges and sharp corners...this dress has it all!

This fabric has been in the stash for ages...I remember Mom making us dresses out of it when I has about 7 or 8. Yes over ten years ago! 

Because of the way I had to layout the skirt pieces to get the border print to match up there's only a strange shaped scrap left. At one point, I was worried if I'd even find an area big enough (after cutting the skirt) to get the bodice pieces out. ...Misreading the perforated dots and cutting the front bodice wrong didn't help either... 

Thankfully everything came out alright! *sigh of relief*

I'm also relieved that I chose to make a test dress prior to sewing the actual dress. Since I had already made the pattern for TaMera by making the test dress I had already figured out the few fitting tweaks that needed to be made and was more familiar with constructing it.

I really have no regrets with this dress! Which is amazing because I tend to over-obsess about the mistakes and little things in projects even when it's something only I'll probably notice.

 I'll be sharing my own Christmas outfit soon so keep watching... 

Hope you have a Merry Christmas and a fabulous weekend!

-'- Jewel

See the dress in action in Episode 5 of Sewing Desk Sit-Down with Jewel HERE: 

• Pattern: Vintage Mail-Order Sew-Rite 8238 / Fabric: Stash / Fabric used on project: 3+ yards (not including test dress)
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