Three shades of grey.

First there was this:

Then there was this:

And now this:

(Click any pic for a bigger view)
Seriously folks - how many grey dresses does one woman need?  Clearly, several.  Grey is my preferred neutral, and very versatile, so I consider it a great choice for dresses.  (And pretty much every other type of garment as well.)

This dress is made from one of the bridal patterns in Burda Style 03/12 (#104, available on the BurdaStyle website here.)  The previous grey dress was another bridal dress from the same issue!  I have long been using formalwear patterns for every day clothes, usually with few alterations other than to length and fabric selection.  For this dress that meant:

*Choosing a stretch woven with a matte appearance rather than lustrous silk.

*Shortening it.

*Adding the separate bodice panels back onto the skirt in the front, as that pointed waist seam did look a bit too bridal to me.  Fortunately that was a simple matter of tracing the skirt pattern, then lining up each bodice panel along the seam to trace before adding seam allowances.  The back waist seam has quite a bit of shaping in it, so to do the same for the back would have meant considerable manipulation of darts, which I didn't think was going to make any improvement to fit or appearance, so I happily left it.

*Adding more flare to the skirt.  I'm pretty hippy (ie, have a big bum) and A line skirts tend to suit me better than straight ones.  That was a simple matter of extending the side seam line from the hip in a straight line.

*And of course, pockets!  I like pockets!  These ones came from another Burda Style magazine, 03/09, #114 (which is a coat).  I like the way the folds echo the cowl.  Incidentally, I like the way a cowl in a woven fabric folds like this.  My wedding dress had the same thing.

*Since my dress is unlined I made a facing for the back neckline and armhole, but of course didn't think about how it would line up with the cowl section which forms the uppermost portion of the side seam of the front.  Doh!  So inside it looks like this:

On the other hand, I am pretty impressed that this is how my dart matching and zip alignment worked out along the back waist seam - on my first attempt! (Yes, I basted a couple of centimetres either side of the seam when attaching the second side of the zip.)

Laters, Baby.