Here’s part one, if you need to catch up.

So, after the Dress That Will Not Be Named, I attempted another version that could be pulled over my head. But this time, I wisely used a knit fabric. (This was around the time of my first adventures with knits, which is also the time my mother finally loaned me her serger.)

Again, for unknown reasons, I didn’t finish that dress. The straps hadn’t been sewn and the skirt hadn’t been hemmed. (Possible reasons: that serger is a total diva, and we had a major falling out that first winter together. More logical reason: both of those finishing parts required NOT the serger, and I was afraid to sew into a knit with a regular machine at that point.) 

At some point, I decided that those reasons didn’t matter. I pinned the straps together with safety pins, concealed them with a jacket, and wore the dress in public.

I’ve never taken a photo of the safety pins, because of THE SHAME, so I finally did that in preparation for this blog post. Also, you can see what the back of this dress looks like – that scoop back is one of my favorite features!

The next dress was made when I was finishing my quilts, because I realized that I wanted to wear something handmade to the opening, but nothing was finished or flattering enough to make me happy.

I chose purple fabric, because it’s my signature color, and I fully lined the dress in an appropriate lining fabric! I hand-stitched the zipper, because at this point I’d realized that I will NEVER be happy with the way a zipper lays when it’s machine stitched.

Here’s the dress in action, with me, and my mom, and my quilts at that opening that I could have sworn I’d blogged about here but it looks like maybe I didn’t. (Full report: it was awesome.)

And one more shot, because I really like this dress:

Now we’re up to this summer. (Did I ever mention when I made the first dress? It was way back in 2011. Insert culturally dated reference here!)

Since I was wearing that safety-pinned dress so often, I made another knit dress. This time, I actually finished it. AND, I finally made a custom pattern for the bodice. (There were multiple muslins. It was a Whole Process.)

With that pattern, I decided to make another variation of the dress.

The back is a v-neck, and the skirt is shorter and straighter. With the darts, it ended up having an interesting tulip-skirt shape that, honestly, I didn’t plan.

I’m not totally happy with the fit on this dress – there’s much more gaping on the neckline than in previous versions, for instance – but I’m excited now to return to the original dress, make some more fit corrections, and come up with a few fun new modifications like pleating, sleeves, or a maxi dress.