Two Peas in a Pod

Cidell invited me to be her (platonic friend) date to a party for Artscape, a wonderful Baltimore street festival for art, food, and music. I wasn't sure what to wear so I sent her a list of about a dozen dresses to choose from and she felt that my Burda 06-2010-123 silk jersey sack dress best fit the vibe of the summer cocktail party.



In fact, she liked it so much for the party that she made her own! We discussed whether it would be weird to wear the same dress, but concluded that your average non-sewist would never know it was the same dress because the fabric is different. It is my guess that people would actually be more likely to think we were wearing matching dresses if we wore completely different dresses out of the same fabric than dresses from the same pattern in different fabric. Alas, I had already given my dress of the yellow and gray fan fabric (purchased together at Jomar) to the Goodwill; it never stopped feeling like a nightgown to me. So doing the real twinsie thing was not possible. This is probably a mercy.





When I finished this dress last year, I realized that it really needed a swayback adjustment. Not only do I have a fairly extreme swayback to begin with, but the weight of the elastic casing along the back shoulder pulls the dress down in back so that the front neckline comes up as high as possible. According to the line drawing, the dress is supposed to be a more balanced and hang from the shoulder rather than the front neck, but I don't know how to make that happen.

So the combination of my swayback and backward pull of the dress were resulting in major puddling over the booty. I opened out the shoulder/yoke seam and shortened the back by 2 inches at center back, as you can see on the left. It really could have used another inch and a half but that just seemed crazy so I stayed at two. it still has a little draping over the booty, but is much improved.




As predicted, nobody seemed to notice that we matched, just that we looked fabulous (heh). We spent the evening chilling on a rooftop, mingling, and watching fireworks before I headed back home on the Amtrak. I actually had not worn my silk jersey sack dress but once, because of the swayback problem. I'm glad Cidell prompted me to fix it so I can wear it for the rest of summer. I am loving the way it looks with my 06-2009-151 obi.

All the photos of this dress are here.