Reinventing the Wheel Part 2

Wow, thanks for all the supportive comments on Part 1! The title of that post was only supposed to refer to steps in the process of making the cycling dress--after hours of experimenting and pondering I find myself doing things I've read about a million times on your blogs, like borrowing a piece from a similarly shaped pattern, etc., thus reinventing the wheel. But, once I started writing, my soul (unconscious? evil twin?) grabbed hold of the pen. Writing is a dangerous business.

Before I get back to the project at hand, I think I'll have a little lie down to recover from the rose print discussion Karen's moderating over at Did You Make That,"It's Official. My Boyfriend's An Idiot." I'm pretty sure I turned 40 before one or two of the people commenting wisely over there on age-appropriate dressing were born.

OK, that's better.

I gave up on making a pattern from the dress and rummaged through my pattern library bin for something I could use. I came up with Simplicity 3506.



The bodice seems about right, although the skirt is too fitted. (The two pics below were taken milliseconds apart.)

So I traced the bodice, straightening it where it curved inward, and will make it up without the darts and stick a skirt on it.

And we'll see.