Highlighter Dress (made in 2015)

Since the Kluge Job was a dud, today I'll highlight one of my favorite early successes!  I made it from an embroidered yellow cotton I bought at the Mill End Store and a salvaged white cotton skirt with lace insertions and ruffles which I bought at the Goodwill Bins.  (The skirt had two layers: the outer layer was stained, but I used the inner layer for this project.)  I call this dress my highlighter dress because of its color scheme, like a yellow highlighter used on white paper.

THE PATTERN

In 2015, I started trying to make a pattern for a bodice block to fit myself.  I started with a boxy RTW shirt, then added vertical darts to make it fit my front, and tapered the Center Back to make it fit my back.  Not the correct method, perhaps, but I tend to learn best by attempting something beyond my skill, then doing a bunch of research into how to fix my mistakes.  Other people (and how-to guides) usually advise starting with a simple project and working through a tutorial to learn the techniques, but that bores me, and if I've never made the mistakes I have no idea what value those techniques actually have.  So I advance like a backstitch: big leap ahead into the open, then back to fill in the gaps, then another big leap.  The bodice block I developed in this way served as the template for three dresses: the hand-sewn gray dress, the salmon striped dress, and this highlighter dress (with gathers under the bust instead of darts).  I'll talk at a later date about the flaws and problems with the pattern, but for this post, I want to celebrate what I love! ​

THE COLORS!

Yellow is my favorite color, the color of sunshine, cheerful flowers, and gold.  It makes me happy to see it, and very happy to wear it.  I've read on other blogs that lots of people consider yellow a hard color to wear, but I think it's a matter of picking a good hue.  For me, mustard yellow is a bad choice, but sunshiney yellow works;  I think it draws out the gold highlights in my hair.  I can wear citrusy yellows in tandem with other colors.  

As for the white touches, I think they light up the whole dress.  

THE FRILLS

Though I didn't make the ruffles on the underskirt, I think they're an exuberant touch.  I deliberately made the underskirt longer than the overskirt, so the ruffles would show.  Then a white waistband and lace at neck and sleeves to draw it all together.  

In this picture, I'm attending a garden party themed wedding.  

THE SCALLOPS

The yellow cotton came with one edge embroidered with flowers, also in yellow.  The edge of the embroidery was scalloped, so when I hemmed the skirt, I hemmed it into a scallop, following the embroidery, to add interest to the bottom of the dress.  The white shows off the scallops nicely.  I'm very drawn to curving lines.  

​I just love this dress!