Silhouette Georgio's Busy City Dress

Unbelievably for me I purchased this fabric from Silhouette Patterns and sewed it up within three months using Georgio's Top also from Silhouette Patterns, lengthened into a dress.  I love this top and have made it a number of times so it seemed natural to lengthen it into a dress.

The finished garment
A great dress although not quite as I envisaged when I lengthened the pattern. I really wanted more of that peplum swish from the hip down.  Apart from having princess seams it doesn't look that different from the dresses made from a mash-up of Silhouette Patterns Sweater Set #195 and Yoga skirt #2010. Once it was finished I did wonder if the Swing dress #4000 wouldn't have given me the image in my head - off to find some fabric to try this idea.

The fabric
A French digital print 3oz viscose knit called The Busy City - great graffiti print which I managed to place without inappropriate bits hitting key parts of the anatomy.

The pattern
Georgio's top, pattern number 312 is described as From the Spring 2012 Armani runway, this kimono/princess seam knit top with the peplum hemline is flattering on every figure type. The cup sizing is built into the princess seaming in the front. This pattern is for 1 or 2 way stretch knits and works with all kinds of knit weights. Silk knits, rayon knits, and cotton knits work well.

The pattern alterations
The top pattern was adapted to fit me long ago, from a size 3 D-cup with 1/4" removed from the shoulder at each of the princess seams tapering to nothing where the shaping for the bust starts. This removed the extra fabric from the upper chest hollow.

All I did this time was add 12.5" to the length of all pattern pieces. The pattern pieces were blended out to be 1.5" wider at the new hemline. I was hoping to keep the flared nature of the peplum in this dress but it is lost, maybe because I didn't angle the seams out far enough keeping the gradient of the peplum extended down to the hem. There is possibly another make in my future to achieve that fuller skirt by using the gradient of the peplum to determine the hem width of each pattern piece.

I also altered the neckline to a scoop neck so that I could add a twisted band at the neck.  This is the twisted cowl neck treatment described by Katherine Tilton in the Craftsy Artful T-shirt class.  I only wanted a neck band not a cowl so I only cut my neckband 2.5" wide.  I folded the band in half and marked the quarter points on one side then marked the other side 1.5" away at each of the quarter points and twisted the band so the quarter points matched up. It looks great finished but was a bit tricky to sew this narrow twisting band - maybe I should only have had the marks 1" apart.

The sewing
The dress was quickly sewn on the overlocker. The only slightly tricky bit was the neckband as mentioned above.

The styling
Nothing really notable about the styling just a simple summer dress for work or play.  More work when paired with my turquoise sandals or maybe city play. Hopefully Summer will stick around for a few more weeks so I can wear it, either with my Untouched World wrap or World bomber jacket.