♪♪Blue, Navy Blue ♪♪
Altered Oasis V and A Collection Dress
McCall's 6844 Peplum Jacket 
Style Arc Ursula Ponte Skirt

This post is a three-fer: three garments, two of which I made, and one that I altered. All three garments are for my daughter.

The Dress:
I bought this dress at the Oasis shop on Carnaby Street while visiting London. The print is from Oasis's Victoria and Albert collection of clothing featuring prints taken from the home decor collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

It looked as though it would fit beautifully, but when I gifted it to my DD and she tried it on, it was too small in the bust. Hmmmm.
 
So I hopped off to Haberman Fabrics in Royal Oak, Michigan and purchased a really nice navy blue birdseye double knit fabric. I got enough for a jacket and skirt as well.

To fix the dress, I decided to insert a navy blue knit godet into each side seam. Even though the dress is a woven, I didn't think that using a knit for the godet would be a problem. It wasn't. Here's the altered dress which now fits my DD beautifully:

The altered dress:

 
Godet closeup

To me, this was a seat-of-the-pants sort of fix, and while it did the job, I have to say I wondered whether it looked, well, classy enough. Then I happened upon this photo of Katie Holmes in a ballgown stepping onto a train in NYC's Penn Station (thanks, Carolyn ;) ):

 

I immediately felt better. If Katie's designer could do it, so could I! :)

Next up, an unlined jacket from the same navy birdseye knit, using  McCalls 6844, View D:

This jacket was so simple to make. I made the usual alterations in waist length and shoulder width that I always do for Big 4 patterns. The jacket is unlined and went together quickly. It fits more like a cardigan than a jacket, and the sleeves are very narrow. I didn't alter them from the original, and my daughter loves the close fit, but it's something to watch for.

Although not called for by the pattern, I used some of Pam Erny's Pro-Sheer Elegance Light fusible interfacing in the shawl collar/front band piece. It made a huge difference in giving that knit just the right amount of stability. Plus I tacked the lower edge of the front band at the hem so it would not flop open during wear. The first comment my DD made when she tried the jacket on was how nice the collar and front band lays.

The final piece of the ensemble was Style Arc's Ursula Ponte Skirt:

 

This is a very body con look; no zippers or darts; just a simple pull-on skirt. When I looked at this pattern on www.patternreview.com, I saw that most of them were very, very tight; the pattern is designed for 4 inches of negative ease. I decided to add some ease to the pattern and I'm glad I did.

I started with a size 10 pattern and allowed for 2 inches of negative ease as opposed to the 4 inches of negative ease designed in the original pattern.

Since fabric was running low, I made the center front panel of the skirt from navy vegan stretch leather from www.girlcharlee.com.

 

and here's the skirt with the jacket:

This was a great little collection to work on. My DD loves her new outfits and I enjoyed getting back into the sewing room after a (too) long hiatus.