Love is in the air today. This year for Valentines Day I made a comfortable and versatile dress that I could wear from work to dinner.
I had a lot of decisions to make for this garment. But the first was which fabric I was going to use from my stash.... I took to Instagram to take a vote:
The winner was the blue crushed velvet. Now I had 3 yards to make something. My first thought was to create something similar to what I wore last Valentines Day: a burgundy velvet dress with a center-front cinched panel going from the hem up to the waist. Velvet, especially crushed velvet, looks gorgeous with ruching. The light reflects off of the fabric in multiple angles that way.
I had several patterns in my stash that I could use for this garment, but once again I took a poll on Instagram to see what the majority favorite would be....
The overall winner was McCalls M7833. A misses pullover dress with side gathering and a ribbon insert. I loved this dress, it was the initial one that came to mind when I thought about this fabric.
The pattern (view B with 3/4 length sleeves) was very simple to sew. It only had a front and back bodice and sleeve pattern pieces. No closures were needed, the bodice pattern pieces were cut on the bias to allow for more stretch, and the ruching insert was created by flattening out the side seam allowance and sewing it down.
The fun part was picking out the ribbon to use for the side seam insert. I took to Pacific Trimming in the NYC Garment District to pick out the perfect color:
I had a hard time deciding whether or not I should matching the velvet fabric color and do a blue ribbon or if I should match my two-tone nail colors for the date night. I couldn't make a decision while at the store so I bought 2.5 yards of each color and told myself I would decide later.
When I asked for family and friends opinions on the color options it was suggested by several people to use all three colors of ribbons together:
Although I liked the fun pop of color, I ultimately was afraid that all three ribbons would look too crafty and homemade. So I decided to go with the safest option, which was to only use the blue ribbon.
Since I made a monotone dress, I was able to have a lot of fun with my accessories. I purchased a Ted Baker heart-shaped purse in red/ purple from Nordstrom which added the fun pop of color that I needed to the outfit. The heart-hoop earrings were purchased from J. Crew, and I pulled out a pair of leopard print heels that I had in my closet.
Check out the finished product below and let me know what you think about the end result:
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