Here’s the scenerio. I am making that Vogue to-die-for Ralph Rucci dress. This one..
Let me tell you, I love the simplicity of this dress. Take a basic shirt dress. Slash here, cut here, insert here.
Voila
A sharp- Very Sharp- little dress. The basic dress is Easy. It is the adornments that raise the bar of this one to an Advanced dress.
Fitting- I had a mini conniption fit when I tried it on. I bought the smaller size range (up to a 12) and made the 12, but when I tried it on, I had major front bodice top wings and there was no way the bodice would do up like it was s’pposed to! I thought hard about throwing the whole thing away, but took a deep breath and laid it aside for a day. Good thing too. When I picked it up the next day, I realized that I had neglected to tack the upper back together. That, of course would make gaposis a major issue. After doing that, and retrying it on, it was evident that the only real alteration was going to be grading up a size. That and giving it a 1/2 inch more for the waist length.
The shape of the dress is definately tringular, giving me more hip than I am willing to admit to! I just snagged a glance at the pattern envelope however, and it is decidedly meant for triangular and hourglass shapes! I dunno.
The big conundrum now is what fabric to use. I don’t want to use white. I don’t do white well! I tend to spill, trip, sit on things…and beside white has already been done. See up there on the pattern photo?!!
I was picturing a nice buttery yellow linen. I found a nice buttery voile. I can’t get the colour to photograph well today, but picture this colour.
It is really lovely, but my first mock up was in a pink cotton, and without any slubs or texture to the fabric it looks- well- like a uniform. And voile doesn’t have any dimension to it either. *sigh*
So off I went back to Fabricland for another look. I came home with this green linen.
I dunno. Texture yes, lovin’ it- no. And it might be a bit heavy with underlining and lining too. For the underlining I found some great cotton/bamboo/silk though. It is the bright spot in my fabric hunt. Even I I don’t end up using it for this project, it will make a great shirt.
I shoulda picked up one of these two fabrics.. 
from Gorgeous Fabrics when I ordered from Ann a couple of weeks ago. What do you think?
What would you do?
Use the Yellow voile? Use the Green Linen that I already have? Or just go ahead and order again from Ann- knowing full well that I will not stop at just one fabric there?!! (although I just checked and I think both fabrics are not longer there)
*double sigh*
Orrr
There is this orange- persimmon – linen blend I have too.
It would work. Unless it screams “Fall”
What to do, what to do, what to do!
See what I mean about crazy!
Today’s postscript…. Off to my busy afternoon. Bookclub first, where we are discussing MY favoutite book of all time “The Time Travellers Wife” I’ve heard through the grapevine that I will have a lot of defending to do as it was not a fav with everyone!. Following that is 9 holes of golf, followed by my weekly baseball game. I’m tired already!
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I dunno either- what does the pattern suggest? It looks from the photo to be a quite substantial weight. It’s such a structured dress. I’m terrible at naming fabric, but I would seek out something that looks almost “quilted” . Don’t know how else to describe it at the moment
Agree that it should have texture of some kind. Not very helpful, sorry.
I love the persimmon linen. It looks in the picture like the cutting at the waist is an insert with piping. I would find a different fabric for here. It would draw attention to your waist and detract from the width at the hip. Good luck!!
I think either linen will be lovely the orange one won’t look too fall like in that style.
I absolutely adore the Time Travellers Wife too, even my husband cried at the end of that one. It’s inconceivable to me that someone else might disagree with us!!!
That orange-persimmon combo is perfect in my opinion! I love those colors anyway and no they don’t say fall! But you can carry it into fall with a jacket. Besides that, I haven’t seen that color being ‘over used’ yet and there’s nothing like being different and not a carbon copy!
Mom – Kent picked some wild leeks near Wildwood and wanted me to give you some of them. They are in your fridge. He made a stirfry and put them in and you can also make leek soup. That’s all I know of but you can use your imagination! I gave some to Oma and Louie too and they traded me for rhubarb and asparagus from their garden. Dad traded me for the pork roast from his dinner that he didn’t want the rest of!
Connie, love that dress. I like anything in linen. I am seriously addicted to linen right now. So those are my two cents!
I vote the persimmon! I think that will look stunning, and not fall at all. I looooooved The Time Traveler’s Wife, but by the time I read it all three of my book clubs had already read and discussed it so I never got the chance to talk it over with anyone. (Yes, I am in three book clubs.) I am so curious to see what they do with the movie!!!!