Moving Day Dress

You know those days when your to-do-list is about 2 miles long and no matter how hard you work you can't seem to check off more than one thing at a time? Well, sometimes when those days roll around I often toss my entire to-do-list out the window and pick up a new sewing project instead!

And thus the "Moving Day Dress" was born.

Back in July I had already been packing for a couple weeks, and I was running out of steam as moving day approached. The day before I hauled all of my stuff up to Maine in a U-Haul I could have cleaned up my room, moved the last few boxes downstairs to be ready for the truck, or done anything to continue getting ready. I could have done any number of things that don't involve sewing. But clearly I HAD to get out my unused fabric and go through all my patterns and pick a gorgeous new ensemble to concoct.

I decided on a striking calico pattern I had grabbed in the last days of my local Joanne's closing sale last year, which I love for summer because it reminds me of Japanese lantern festivals. The pattern I picked was an old out of print pattern I'd bought for a song some untold years ago, and *gasp* have never used! Such a simple, retro style that would clearly flatter me and I haven't once touched it? Shocking.

Within a few short hours I had a gorgeous dress.

But something was missing! It was a great dress that would serve well for many a summer occasion, but it lacked a certain flair. After much brainstorming and perusal of various sources of inspiration online, I decided that my dress needed an oversized, floppy bow.

The first iteration of a proved a resounding failure, and I'm pretty sure I've discarded all photos of that disaster (placement was too high, weight dragged down the silhouette, utterly unflattering). But it gave me one significant eureka moment: the bow must be removable! A waistband and a large snap closure provided the removability, and voila the dress was finished. 

And here I am, showered and exhausted after a long, sweaty day of moving, enjoying my new apartment in my dress made just for the occasion.