My Birthday Georgia Dress

So I turned 30 in November. I was a little worried about how that would feel – it feels like a massive milestone and everyone (!) asks how you feel about turning 30. It wasn’t actually as traumatic as I feared. I had some drinks with friends to celebrate – originally I was going to make it a costume party but I ran out of time to make my costume of choice (Cyd Charisse in the green dress in Singin’ In The Rain – I will make this costume one day!), so I decided to just have drinks.

I did still have time to make myself a dress though! I’ve been a fan of By Hand London for a while – I’ve made the Elisalex dress twice (1 & 2 here). I’ve also made the Victoria Blazer twice now (1 & 2 here). I also definitely am attracted to the Holly Jumpsuit, though I’m not 100% sure I have the balls to wear a jumpsuit! I decided the Georgia Dress was a suitable dress to celebrate/ commiserate turning 30! There are some great Georgias around the blogosphere – I especially like What Katie Sews’s one – in fact I like her style in general!

I made the dress out of a sateen cotton in navy blue from my favourite shop, Rolls and Rems in Holloway Road. Since my drinks were just in a pub, I didn’t want to look super over-dressed by going for something really shiny or sparkly – though I do love sequins! I went for navy as I find it more forgiving than black. I did consider going for something brighter, but instead of a bright dress I might have felt self-conscious in, I went for bright shoes – in an obnoxious shade of pink (my favourite shade of pink!)

I made a size 2/6 at the bust and graded to a 6/10 at the waist and hips. I did a small bust adjustment of 1/2 inch on each cup – so 1 inch in total. To make the bodice fit, I sewed it (and then the skirt) with 2.5cm side seams, instead of the 1.5cm standard seam allowance. I also had to shave some off each of the seams in the skirt – I probably didn’t need to grade out to the larger size. I took out 1/2 cm from each of the front side seams, 1cm from the side seams (once of which is the zip), 1cm from the back side seams. I took all of this excess out at the bust/ waist and smoothed them out over my hips, until it didn’t look wrinkled or puckered.

After all the taking in and measuring, I found that I couldn’t do the dress up – oops! So I let the dress out by 1.5cm at the zip. It now is perfectly snug and the zip sticks a little bit – but luckily I have a very understanding boyfriend who helped zip me in!

I’m not a huge fan of invisible zips, especially as I finally bought an invisible zip foot and it did not like this zip/ fabric combo. It kept veering off and trying to sew through the teeth of the zip – I don’t even know how this happened! It ended up looking okay though.

I really enjoyed making this dress – and only just got it done in time! I felt a little exposed while I was wearing the dress, because I don’t normally wear such low-cut things, but I just kept telling myself that I could see a lot more than anyone else! I fancy making this again, with the wider straps and maybe in a more stretchy fabric to make it more every-day.

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