I bought this Jackie Dress by Victory Patterns as soon as it came out- didn’t even let the pattern marinate on my brain! I loved the seaming of the dress, made of princess seams, coupled with the additional panels in the skirt, and I loved the subtle flare the dress has at the hips- it looks chic and classic, but also comfortable since it doesn’t hug every single curve of the body. Maybe it’s because of the styling in the pattern photos, but it has a decidedly 70’s vibe to me- and I have been GAGA FOR SEVENTIES for the past year or so after having never paid much attention to that era in the past. What can I say, my tastes are evolving! This pattern calls for a knit fabric with stretch, and a while ago I bought some cheap, slinky crap for it on a whim when I was purchasing fabric for other projects. I didn’t put a lot of thought into what I was buying because I was in a hurry, and my inattention really showed when I got it home and realized that the fabric was of super poor quality and I didn’t even like it that much. It was thin and showed every lump and bump underneath it, and it also looked like it would pill and snag very easily when worn. All was not lost- that cheap fabric ended up being a terrific muslin for some other projects I worked on that called for stretch knits, but the Jackie Dress got put on the back burner indefinitely since I didn’t have anything to make it with.
Then fall rolled around and I was sorting through my pattern stash and I realized that this design would be a terrific garment to add to my arsenal of fall/winter makes. It’s got a shortened turtleneck (providing a little bit of warmth, not that much is needed in LA anyways), an option for long sleeves, and, depending on the length you make, the skirt of the dress could be short, tea length or maxified, which works great for the silhouettes I was looking for at the time (in this post right here I talked about focusing on specific garments for fall/winter since my cooler weather wardrobe has been seriously lacking for forever). The floral velvet fabric that I ultimately used for this pattern was a total happy accident. I have only recently been exploring the fabric district in DTLA outside of Michael Levine’s, thanks to SewDIY’s blog post about her favorite LA fabric/notions spots. I’m not exactly sure why I’m not in the habit of exploring the smaller shops around the strip, but I think it has something to do with time– I rarely go fabric shopping to meander, I just want to get in and out, and knowing the layout of a place and what to expect from it works well for my goal-oriented sensibilities (my one exception is The Fabric Store- I love the shop, I love the staff, I could hang out there all day…and I have! lol) and also I don’t like to haggle. I have this idea that all hole-in-the-wall places don’t have set prices and want you to do the work to settle on a price and I don’t like that at all. Just tell me how much it is- if it’s too expensive then I won’t buy it, no back-and-forth price jumping necessary.
ANYWAYS, on one of my exploring trips to the fabric district I passed by a bolt of floral velvet placed on the sidewalk in front of a store (I’m sorry but I have no idea what the store was called and I don’t remember where it was, except that it was on a corner). I inquired about it and the guy inside stated a fair price. HOWEVER, when we went to cut it, I told him I wanted 1 and 1/2 yards, and he very quickly blabbered something about “3 yards cut, discount, only, special, you want?” and I was super flustered because like I said, I DON’T LIKE HAGGLING!!! and my brain shuts down sometimes when I am having a social interaction that is going a different way than I anticipated, so I just mumbled “umm, yes, ok? sure? ok…” and I walked out spending something like $50 cash for 1.5 more yards of fabric than I needed, so my whole trip home was spent wondering what the hell I was gonna make with all three of those yards… I envisioned an entire velvet suit comprised of an overcoat and long bell bottom pants and a matching purse, because 3 yards is way more fabric than I normally buy if I am not sure what I am going to use it for, and of course I felt I needed to use every bit of it because I didn’t want to waste anything. And then lo and behold, a few days later after feeling bad about how the whole exchange went and berating myself for not being able to ask for what I needed in my haze of anxiety, I pulled out the fabric to admire it and I realized that it was EXACTLY enough to squeeze the Jackie Dress out of. Whew! What a journey, right?
With that 3 yards I eeked out a size 2/bust graded to a size 4/waist and hip with sleeves and the longest skirt version. I find that Victory Patterns tend to be too small on me but I figured that since this was a knit dress that was supposed to be very fitted and would stretch out a bit on my body, I could get away with it. Turns out I was ALMOST right, but not quite. Construction of the main part of the dress was straightforward and fast- I serged all the dress panels together (definitely my preference when working with velvet) and the bulk of it was constructed in less than 10 minutes. The more time consuming part came when piecing together the facings for the back bodice, which creates a modest but beautiful slit for a peekaboo glimpse of skin of the upper back, closed at the neck with three fabric loops + buttons. I used some knit interfacing for these pieces, which in my experience doesn’t work well with all knit fabrics, but it worked a treat on the velvet, stabilizing the pieces without bubbling and gaping anywhere.
This pattern is labeled as Intermediate probably because of the back facing and loop closures, which require some careful sewing, clipping to the seam allowance, and understitching, but the construction wasn’t difficult at all- I think that a beginning sewer could figure it out if going slowly and carefully. Once I finished my facing pieces and had everything constructed and laying perfectly flat, I sewed the short turtleneck collar onto the dress and tried it on. I was NOT impressed. As per the instructions, I sewed the neck seam with a zig zag stitch instead of serging it so that it wouldn’t be too bulky, and I under stitched to keep the top of the neck from rolling out, but it just wasn’t behaving at all. It looked messy and awkward, but even more importantly, IT WAS TOO TIGHT! I didn’t adhere to my go-up-a-size-with-this-company’s-patterns rule and I thought I was going to get away with it, but NOPE, turns out I was wrong. I hoped that I could squeeze out a bit of extra room since the back of the neck isn’t closed by a seam, but with a button, which provides a tiny bit of wiggle space. Maybe if I moved the button to the verrrry edge of the seam I could get a bit more breathing room? I tried it out by safety pinning the button loop to the furthest edge of the opposite seam, but it didn’t work- it was just too uncomfortable, and I knew that I would get no joy out of wearing the garment if I was constantly fidgeting with the fabric around my neck. But the ill fit didn’t end there- the back slit wasn’t behaving properly either; instead of laying flat, it was gaping slightly open into a subtle diamond shape and the inside edges were rolling out. The bodice did not feel or look too tight at all front the front or the sides, but the slit was splaying open as if it were too tight. UGH.
As per usual when I am stumped and frustrated by a project, I put the dress away for the day. I don’t remember if I dreamed the solution to my problem with this dress or not, but that happens often- when I am deep in a sewing project that isn’t working, I have anxiety dreams about it. When I waited tables back in the day, after particularly busy shifts I used to dream about being at work all night, and I would wake up in the morning so pissed because I wasn’t getting paid for the “work” I was doing in my dreams! My sewing dreams are similar- I replay the sewing issue I am having on a loop, trying out different possibilities until I figure out what will work. More than once I have woken up in the morning and remembered the solution to my problem after dreaming about it. But I have also woken up before, excited that I had the perfect fix, and then, after recalling what I was supposed to do, become completely disheartened that the fix made absolutely no sense at all (once it went something like wake up: “Oh, It think I know how to fix this blouse now! Okay, what was it again?…I have to….glue…glue something….glue a….plastic…wait, I’m supposed to glue a plastic tube into the threads of my fabric?? what the hell??”). Anyways, I can’t remember if I actually dreamed about this Jackie dress or not, but regardless, I woke up knowing exactly what I needed to do to fix the super tight neck and hopefully the gaping peekaboo slit in the back.
I unpicked the turtleneck and it’s facing (which was bulky underneath the dress and never wanted to lay down properly anyways), and I added a simple neck binding in it’s place, folding the ends on either side under since the neck wasn’t a closed seam. This obviously lowered the neckline of the dress, which in turn affected the placement of the buttons, and that mostly fixed my issue with the gaping back- with lower buttons, the pieces were closed further down the back so there wasn’t as much room for it to splay open. It still doesn’t lay down as flat as I would like, and in hindsight I should have used some stay tape at those seams to keep them more stable, but I don’t think it’s that noticeable…and if it is, I simply don’t care at this point- the rest of the dress is too pretty to get stuck on that small detail.
I really did like the look of this dress with the turtleneck, but I am super happy with my regular neckline now. For one thing, it is WAY more comfortable, and for another, I’m not entirely sure that the turtleneck looked that good on me in the first place. I love turtlenecks, but I sometimes feel a bit swallowed up by them, like I just have a big, round, floating head on top of a mass of fabric. The garment still looks dressy and feminine with the more casual neckline, in part because I was able to keep the back of the dress as is with the button closures and slit. I love the length of the dress and the width of the swingy skirt paired with the long sleeves, and I have already worn the dress a lot this season. But most of all I am REALLY into this beautiful velvet! I have seen other floral velvets on the bolt that look so dated and tired that I half expected them to smell like mothballs, but the design of this fabric is so great! The size of the print and the bright colors against the black work really well together, and coupled with this pattern, it’s got the perfect 70’s vibe that I keep finding myself drawn to. Unfortunately I had a really hard time photographing this dress- I’m not sure why! But after two separate photoshoot attempts with sub par results, I decided to just stick with the 3 or 4 photos that looked decent enough to share here and call it a day. Thanks for your help with the photos, Claire!
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