Perry Camo

My current favorite dress is one that I made out of slightly flawed camo fabric that I got in a bargain bundle from Girl Charlee.  I wanted to try out the Seamwork Perry, but I wanted to use my inexpensive fabric that I didn't care about, in case it didn't turn out.  It turns out that this dress is just darling and I love the fabric choice!

I don't think I ever would have paid full price for camouflage fabric, but I just love the way it looks as a dress.  And I've gotten several compliments on it the few times I've worn it so far.

The fabric is fairly on the thin side, so I lined the bodice with the same burnout knit I used to line my velour Skater Anna, just to give it some extra coverage so my bra doesn't show through.

I love the sleeve detail.  At first, I thought I might have made a mistake cutting out the band because the it was way shorter than the end of the sleeve, but I just stretched that band extra hard as I sewed it on and now the sleeve has this lovely little poof at the end that I think is just cute as can be.

The back called for a hook and an eye to close the keyhole opening, but I thought it would be cute to use a button and a loop of elastic.  As it turns out, the neckline is well big enough that I don't ever have to undo the button, but it is functional just the same.  I found a green button that matched perfectly in my stash and I used a bit of white elastic cord and used a black sharpie to make it match.

 I then took the ends of the cut elastic cord and used my 3 step zigzag stitch and stitched them together side, but side, into a loop.  Then I hand stitched that to the back opening, making sure to make the stitches on top of the (crooked) top stitching so they don't show too much.

Here's what it looks like closed up.

And here is how it actually looks on me.

The shoulders are cut a little narrow and the sleeve head comes way up onto my shoulder, so I widened the shoulders on my pattern a bit so that hopefully next time they will look a little better.

And here's a photo of my Perry on my dress form.

This was a quick make, even though I didn't quite take the 2 hours the pattern says it'll take because I lined the bodice and fooled around adding the button and loop detail and also just because I'm a bit of a slow sewist.  But I have already cut out my next one and plan to make a few more.