Evening Dress & Clutch

I didn't have any floor length evening dresses for the cruise we took. I looked around the stores to buy one, but they were all short. :( I ended up buying one from Cache for $200... which was more than I wanted to spend. The saleswoman said they only had one floor length dress and what do you know it was in my size. When she handed me the dress I thought it was just ok. When I tried it on, it fit like a glove and looked so elegant... so of course I had to buy it.

This was taken on the cruise by one of the photographers... classic Titanic scene.


Well... there were 2 formal nights on the cruise. I had a dressier short dress I could've worn but I wanted another floor length dress. A couple of weeks before the cruise I bought 3 yards of purple stretch satin to make into a formal dress. I'm not sure why I only bought 3 yards though... most patterns required at least 4 or 5 yards. With less than a week left before the trip and only 3 yards for fabric, I turned to Vogue 7848... I decided to make a matching clutch with the leftover fabric, too.

= Strapless Dress #2: Vogue 7848 =
I had just finished this dress in the blue cotton print and it fit very well. I don't think you can tell it's the same dress!! The pattern came with a floor length, but it only came up to my ankles (and I'm not very tall... 5'4"). I used view C, which was the same view as the short version but used the floor length hem. Here are some alterations:

1. Added about 6" to the bottom of all the pieces (When I had sewed all the pieces together they were varying lengths... hehehe... as you can see I was very technical.)
2. Used an invisible zipper
3. Used fusible hem tape. Since the satin was so slippery, I had trouble hemming the dress. I used fusible hem tape first and then went back to sew the hem.
4. Added a satin ribbon like view B. I just eyeballed where the ribbon should go and sewed it in the side seams. I wasn't going to sew the ribbon in, but the ribbon and dress were easily sliding against each other.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the result. The length was perfect with my heels as you can see below.

This is a formal picture taken on the cruise... but you don't get a very good view of the dress. Another "must" cruise scenery...


Here is the classic hanging on the hanger picture...


= Ruffle Clutch =
I used the How-to for the "Gold Ruffle Clutch" on BurdaStyle. Overall it was pretty easy to put together. I just struggled with the slippery satin and the fact that it didn't like to iron very well. The clutch definitely needed a brooch and I had the perfect one. (The brooch is from Hannah D's.) This was such an elegant, perfectly matching clutch.

This picture was taken on my phone so please excuse the quality of the picture...