Alterations to my turquoise blue The Vampires Wife style dress (version 2)

In the end I am so unhappy with the photos of my bum in this dress I ended up taking apart the back seam and zip and the back frill and redoing it.


The alterations were just down the back seam, meaning it is not totally ripped apart and remade. It means the centre of the back skirt frill is slightly less gathered than the rest of it.

I actually let this out by about 3cm -so quite a bit. Luckily I left a large seam allowance down the back seam which made this letting out possible. If I had cut it back  could not have done this so my fear of finishing is well placed and I still do not yet have perfection with this pattern so version 3 will also have large seam allowances and maybe all the next few dresses I make regardless of what type of pattern, so not just my self drafted but ALL patterns, because the advantage of being able to correct this cannot be stressed enough.


I did not let out the neck so I left that without unpicking and just unpicked from the bottom up though I did detach the CB neck facings from the CB seam / zip to make the alteration.

Luckily I got away with doing it this way.


Really the reason I did this, in this way, is:

• I really did not want to totally take this dress to bits. It took quite a few weeks to make it.
• It fits, and is comfortable to wear, except for the back, which I think is too tight so thats the point of this altering.
• I have no more fabric to make a new facing for the neck so I need to keep that as it is, if at all possible.
• I stitched in the ditch round the neck edge to make the facing lie flat and keep the stitching invisible and for once did this really well so its very hard to see the stitching so it will be absolute hell trying to unpick it.
• Anyway when it fitted ok and the rest of it looks fine why unpick and redo it cos then it may not still fit me? 
• I might wreck what is really a very nice summer dress that I will probably actually wear.

Too much fabric at the waist?

I also think the bodice on this dress is slightly too long. When I checked it against the first dress that is about 1.5cm shorter.

You can see on this photo its slightly puffy at the waist. I think that may be down to the extra length but I am not sure since I was actually wearing this all day so it did get a bit creased. I am also not perfectly sure this fits less well than version 1 though so I have left this alone.


Something to work out on my next version. I suspect I should actually make the bodice length somewhere between the two versions of this so about 1.25cm longer than the first dress but shorter than this one.

Version 1

Either way this is now wearable
( see below)  and I feel it was worth the extra effort re-doing the back, the zip, and the frill (at the centre back).



















There is a slight mark where I unpicked everything but the reduction in gathers at centre back frill is really hardly noticable.

It certainly fits me better anyway and I am now happy with version two of my The Vampires Wife inspired blue dress:

So today I am washing my fabric for dress 3 which I am making shorter based on The Vampires Wife Birthday dress. I prefer above-the-knee dresses really so that will be what version 3 of this dress is going to be, but its less wearable work-wise, so the next version is for play only. It is also going to be in a patterned fabric with skulls and roses on it but they are really quite subtle so I do not think this would not be work worthy other than the length.

I am seriously considering whether I want double sleeve frills or not and maybe not as it goes. I have enough fabric to make them and know from version one of my TVW inspired dresses they are not difficult but would I wear it more with the single style of frills?

Then do I want this type of TVW short dress ( red dress) which has a long skirt and short double frills, or something like the Birthday dress which has shorter skirt with longer single frills - though has a double sleeve frill? 

Maybe I should make both styles?

I am also debating making the CB with flare. In the first and second version they are normal straight skirts with side flare - like my Winifred Aldrich book directs but I looked at this picture and cannot decide if the original TVW dress has flare at CB or not.

The Birthday dress though does not appear to have CB flare so what to do?

The Birthday dress back

I found a gingham picture of TVW dress which appeared it did have flare (I cannot locate that picture now because they all seem to have sold but being gingham it was more obvious than with other fabrics) so I am debating whether to add some to see with this version. Not loads just maybe a cm at what would be knee length and scale that for a mini.

Well there is definitely an interesting and informative learning curve in my sewing with this project!

 Though I am making too many versions maybe - wardrobe-wise that is? 

I have some other versions in mind before I stop this, using some of my rather too large stash of fabrics, which is also stash busting, as well as creative.

Its great fun though and solving problems with fitting must help future sewing projects. 

Now on to washing my fabric...............

Thanks for visiting

Bracken