Dressed for Derby

What a fun project this turned out to be! My daughters went to the Kentucky Derby this year and, of course, needed new dresses. The Oaks is the day before Derby and is partnered with Bright Pink, an organization which focuses on risk reduction and early detection of breast cancer. Everyone is encouraged to wear pink and they do!

Remember the Little White Dress Contest sponsored by Patternreview.com? Well, Hannah wore her little white dress with a beautiful pink hat which she bought on ebay. The hat has a stargazer lily which is the official flower for The Oaks.

 

Just for fun, Hannah entered the Longines Kentucky Oaks Fashion Contest. Simon Baker from The Mentalist was one of the judges and told her that she looked "beautifully understated". Made her day!

The next day was the 140th running of The Kentucky Derby. Sarah wore Vogue 1236 in red/white striped seersucker. I made the same adjustments that I made for "The Underwear Dress" and it turned out great! I lined it with a cotton batiste and added a zipper to the back to make it easier to put on and take off.

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She wanted a monogrammed bow for her hat because it's all about the hats at The Derby.

Hannah's dress is Vogue 8648. I've had this pattern in my stash for a Susan Khalje class on Craftsy but haven't had the time to start. The pattern was designed to be cut on the bias. Instead, I marked the straight grain and cut the medium weight linen straight. There are lots of seams for taking up and letting out so it was extremely easy to get a good fit.

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My daughters loved their classic Made by Mommy dresses. While Hannah was standing in line for the Longines Fashion Contest, one of the contestants asked her if her dress was Lily Pulitzer. She told her no, it's a JanMade! That makes it all worthwhile.

Vogue 1236 (Sarah's Underwear Dress)

Well, hello blog! It's been a while. I've been too busy sewing (and remodeling bathrooms) to sit down and blog. My daughters attended the Kentucky Derby and Oaks a couple of weeks ago and kept me busy making dresses. One of my daughters lives 100 miles away and chose Vogue 1236 for her dress. I thought I had better sew up a "muslin" first for fitting. I grabbed a piece of cotton fabric from my stash of underwear fabric from the local underwear factory. I thought I would seam this dress up just enough to check the fit. The more I sewed, the more I liked the cool cotton print so I decided to finish it up. I raised the front neckline just a little and a couple of other minor adjustments. Sarah didn't seem all that excited at first about wearing the "muslin" but I left it with her anyway. She texted me last week to tell me that she wore her underwear dress to church! She decided that it's a pretty comfortable little summer dress and that she might like a couple more.  I guess I'll have to let her go shopping in my underwear stash.

The pattern doesn't have a zipper so I didn't insert one in this version. I decided, however, that for her Derby dress I would add a zipper to the back to make it a little easier to get on.

Coming soon....Derby seersucker version of Vogue 1236.