Blah blah blah, depressed, blah blah blah, unmotivated, blah blah blah, lethargic. I've said it before, you've heard it before. Sewing mojo is hard for me to come by these days, so when inspiration finally struck, I worked like gangbusters to make it happen.Some friends decided they wanted to attend a suspension event (just a week before it happened), and I decided to tag along. I jokingly made the comment that "I guess I had better get started on a PVC dress", and while I was saying it, made the decision that I was actually going to do it.
I've sewn stretch PVC before (you might recall my Catwoman costume), and had seen it recently in stock at my JoAnn's. I went in and couldn't find it. I asked at the counter, and they said they didn't have it stock and never had, which is bologna, because I had seen it there. I went home, defeated. I checked online to see if they were full of crap; lo and behold, they had PVC, but not stretch PVC, and it was stored in the faux leather and vinyl section. I went back the next day and grabbed it.
The pattern I used was McCall's 6602. I chose this at the suggestion of a friend because it was labelled easy and showed lots of skin. I left the "collars" off the back (their term, not mine) and did the usual shortening of the straps, which I wish I hadn't in retrospect. For once, I didn't lengthen the dress, and it ended up well above my knee. That's really shorter than I am comfortable wearing, but considering the nature of the event, and I would be wearing tights anyway, I figured it would be okay. I also sewed in bra cups because there was no way I could have worn a bra with that.I added studded trim on the bottom on the dress and studded grommet tape up the back, finished off with silver lacing. Because it pulled tight, it could have stood to have boning up the back, but I was so pressed for time, that wasn't an option.
So how is the difficulty on this dress? Aside from the little strips in the middle, pretty easy. Despite the tailor's tacks on the strips, it doesn't line up with the dress well, and I think I ripped out the stitches at least twice on all of them. I could never get the points to look as sharp as I would have liked, but oh well. I imagine this would be easier in non-PVC.
I never got pictures of the full outfit, but here I am wearing it immediately after it was finished. I ended up wearing my hair up, to show off the lacing better.
If I were to make this dress in PVC again, I would definitely use stretch PVC and go down a size (the looseness in the hips is kind of annoying, considering how tight the top was). I also wouldn't have shortened the straps like I usually do.
