Hazel

Yeah, I know, I am not very imaginative with my names as of late.  Anyways, this is my version of the famous Colette Patterns Hazel.  I joined the sew colette 2.0 sew along.  I also, think I am going to go back and do all of the patterns from the Sew Colette handbook.  Which, I have finished one of the patterns and I need to finish my truffle dress. 

ANYWAYS!  Back to my Hazel dress which I took out for a test drive today.  So, this is a super simple dress and my muslin only took two hours.  Did you catch that?  My muslin took two hours.  More on that later.  Basically, it's a slightly high waisted dress that is pretty cute.  As soon as I saw this pattern, I immediately thought, "plaid!" 

I made it in a really nice plaid seersucker fabric I got from fabric.com during one of their sales.  It's basically a princess seamed bodice, but the princess seams are changed a little and come to a point.

One point about this dress is to make sure you get the necessary amount of fabric.  I thought that I could get away with just getting 2 yards of fabric, but I ended up four inches too short!!  I, of course, didn't realize this until I had already cut out every piece except for my skirt front.  So, my next dress that I make from this pattern (yes there will be more), will be longer.  I talked about this in my Brown Sparkly Dress, but I will say it again, I need my dresses a little on the longer side because I am a stay at home mom.  If this dress was even slightly shorter, it would be way too short for my taste.  But, that's fine.  The dress is really comfortable and as long as my husband is the one putting my daughter in the booster seat and picking things up, I am fine.

So, remember how I said that my muslin took two hours?  Well, this dress took WEEKS of work!!  First, I had to cut my dress 4 inches too short.  Then, I sewed my skirt together and my pockets were nowhere near matching up.  So I had to resew my pockets on.  Then, I sewed my left front on incorrectly, with the pocket on the outside.  So, I seam ripped and then DID IT AGAIN!!!  Once I finally got the skirt sewed together properly, then I went to put the facing in, and it was TWO INCHES TOO SHORT!!!  So, I decided that the silver lurex in my fabric was slightly irritating and I decided to line it with some ikea knoppa sheet scraps I had from a different dress.  I sewed it all together and I was TWO INCHES SHORT AGAIN!  So, at this point, I just sewed on an extra patch of fabric at the end.  I, of course, sewed it on incorrectly with the seam allowance on the outside.  Grrrr!!!  So frustrating!  But, thanks to the sew along, I "kept my head down and powered through" (yes another Arrested Development reference).  I am really glad that I did because I really love this dress. :)

Cost:
Pattern: $18 (but I will make it again, so next time it will be free!)
fabric: 2 yards of seersucker $8.40
notions: $1 for the zipper
total: $27.40

What I learned:

I put in my very first invisible zipper!  I think I did pretty well.  My waist seam is all matched up and everything!

I also learned to keep going on a project when things get hard.  That was actually a really important lesson, because sometimes when things go wrong in a project I tend to just give up and stop working on it.

Would I make it again?
Yes, yes, yes!!  I love this dress and can't wait to make a longer version of it.  I think it would be really cute in even a solid.