Vogue 1257

Hello, everyone!  This past Saturday, my family had a totally relaxing, stay-at-home kind of day.  I decided sometime mid-morning that I was going to start sewing something new.  I pawed through my patterns and fabrics and came up with this pairing - Vogue 1257 with some deep red ponte knit from JoAnns. 
                 Can I tell you, this stuff is beautiful and washes with no pills or roughness - a really nice beefy knit, and you can't beat the price when it's on sale or with a coupon.  I see much more of it in my future.  I just wish they had some more colors and maybe some stripes or something.

Anyway, here is the dress:

The obvious change is that mine is short-sleeved... not by my design.  I was going with the long sleeves, but they were just way too tight.  After I let them out as much as possible, I could still barely get the dress all the way on and had serious sausage-casing arms.  I'm not sure whose fault this is - the ponte I used has very little stretch and only in one direction, but the pattern calls for 2-way stretch, so that shouldn't have been a problem.  Since the sleeves are cut-on with the front, the are cut from the direction of the fabric with no stretch.  I just hacked off the sleeves very short, and it fits, although the sleeves are still snug around my biceps - I blame all the time I've been spending pumping iron at the gym.  If I make this again (and I may), I will simply cut the sleeves wider.  Luckily, the fit on the rest of the dress is perfect with no alterations.

I cut the skirt portion a bit more A-line than the pattern piece, and I like the swingier shape with the gathering detail.  One part I will pay more attention to in a future version is the placement of the bodice overlap so that it looks more like it's flowing into the skirt detail.  It looks perfect on the pattern envelope, so I'm not sure if I matched up dots incorrectly or what.  It doesn't bug me enough for me to go unpicking seams to fix it, though.

The back view shows how the back skirt is plain but with 4 darts.  I was a bit concerned this would be too tight on my bum, but I think it lays nicely.  I didn't plan to necessarily finish this dress in one day, but that's what happened, so I wore it to church on Sunday.  I think this is casual enough, though, that I could wear it with some flat sandals in summer.  It is SUPER comfortable, and the gathered detail at the waist means I don't feel the need to constantly suck in my tummy.  :-)

I think the profile view is fine and won't elicit any questions about pregnancy, as can be a problem with some gathered above-waist skirts.

Here is a closeup so you can see what I mean about the pleats and gathers not really lining up right with the knot.