Not everything that I sew can turn out cute, okay? Does that mean that I should exclude the ugly things from this blog? Maybe. But this is the first thing that I sewed from start to finish in the new house and the new sewing room so it’s getting a feature! I found this vintage 100% cotton at a thrift store–6 yards of it for $5, so I had to buy it. Then I played the “what does this fabric want to be” game, and it said, among other things, that it wanted to be a vintage nightgown.
I should have gone with the ‘other things,’ but I do still have plenty of fabric for two shirts, maybe even a shirt and another dress. 6 yards is a lot of fabric. The pattern that I had in my pattern box for vintage nightgowns looked so cute in the illustration. But that’s usually a good hint right there that something isn’t going to look cute in person when the pattern packet uses an illustration instead of a photograph. The pattern even called for cotton. So how did things go so wrong? Nothing really went wrong; it just came out ugly.
In an effort to make the nightgown cute, when I finished all the pattern instructions, I played with 4 different waist alterations to try and make it cuter. I tried pleats, an elastic waist, an elastic only in the back, and eventually settled on these ties which can go around the back, or both the front and the back to give this bag some shape. I tried everything short of taking in the side seams more because I gave the dress pockets. They weren’t included in the pattern, but I was convinced I’d like to wear this nightgown and pockets make everything better. But instead of making a cute nightgown, I made a hospital gown. Oops.
For as ugly as it is, it is nicely finished. My seams are all serged, my hems rolled tightly and everything pressed….it’s the highest quality dress I’ll never wear. Unless maybe I can use it as a base layer for a steampunk. It’s basically Victorian underwear after all, so maybe with a corset, a jacket, and an overskirt this yoked neckline could be good for something.
