Colette Parfait

 

If you squint a little the print on this dress isn't so loud.  I ordered this Liberty of London print from www.fabric.com many moons ago.  It wasn't exactly what I pictured, and by that I mean I didn't like it at all when I opened the box.  I kept it and recently decided to use it to revisit the Colette Patterns Parfait dress as a wearable muslin of sorts.  I liked it online because the flowers look like my all-time favorite dahlias, but in person the little squiggles in the background just don't do it for me.

 

The Parfait dress is the first pattern I feel in love with from Colette Patterns.  There are just so many things about it that are adorable to me: the gathered pocket, the gathered bust, the sundress style back, the empire waist.  I made my first version in the infancy of my sewing career and the SBA made it extremely challenging for me.  I don't even remember how many muslins I did.  When I pulled out the pattern pieces I traced back then, there were various sizes so apparently I did a whole lot of guessing.  The dress isn't lined, so for this version I underlined it in muslin I had lying around.  I didn't bother to do any pattern matching and I'm not bothered by that at all.  Life is too short to pattern match on a pattern with a lot of seams and a crazy print.

 

You have to look really hard to find the pockets. Hint: look for the button:

 

 

 

The back keeps you sort of cool in the sweltering heat of the midwest summer.

 

 

The only part I'm not crazy about is the facing.  I had to catchstitch it to the underlining so it would stay in place.  It didn't take long and I think it's a must-do on this dress or else your facing will be all over the place. 

 

The only thing I changed about the instructions is I installed the invisible zipper at the top of the side seam instead of sewing the front and back together for about an inch and then installing the zipper under that per the instructions.  I don't even know how I would get the dress on if I did that.

 

A close up of the print and the front bodice:

 

 

I'm glad I sewed this up even if the print is a little obnoxious because I want to make another version in a sweet print and I want to make sure I get that right.  I did wear this dress to the park today, though, so maybe I'll get some wear out of it.