Donna Karan Vogue draped dress in a stripe

I wanted a quick project to complete whilst I was visiting Cairns recently for a gymnastics competition.  Knit dresses are usually pretty quick so I rifled through my pattern and fabric stash and chose Vogue 1159.  All the reviews said that it would be difficult to modify to fit, so I was thinking that lack of fitting would save me a bit of time.  Of course, it was entirely likely that I would end up with a dress that didn't fit, so I paired it with a fabric that I wasn't sure whether or not I loved.  Well, I loved the fabric, but it was one of those fabrics that just seems more striped when you are holding it than when you are clicking that "Add to cart" button.  I have talked about the traps of stripey fabrics previously here and here.  Okay, so I am a slow learner, but I am doing creative things with stripes!

The pattern: Vogue 1159

The fabric:  rayon/lycra knit from EmmaOneSock, lining is a lightweight power mesh, also from EmmaOneSock.

Some notes:

Sizing - for Vogue knit dresses, I usually cut an 8 for the front top half, a 12 for the back top half and grade the skirt out to a 16.  For this one, I cut a straight 12.  It seems to have worked for the dress, which has pleats in the front skirt, but I do have problems with the lining, which I will detail later.  Next time (and there will be a next time, probably in a plain) I will grade the skirt out along the diagonal centre back skirt seam.

Length -  I shortened the dress to above the knee.  I would have made it a tad shorter, but the blue stripe looked better on the hem than the reddish stripe.  This shorter length is not as elegant as the original length, but I lead a pretty casual life.  You can see here that I have paired the dress with thongs.  I was on my way to a school picnic that involved scooter riding. 

Lining - I am having problems with the lining.  The dress is only lined in the skirt portion, and the lining is necessary to hold the draping in place.  When I am wearing the dress, the lining works its way up to my waist.  I presume that this is because it is a couple of sizes too small.  I have released the only seam in the lining, which is at the centre front, but this does not help.  I am wondering if I should insert some width into the back of the lining.  Any other suggested solutions will be appreciated!  Next time, I will add width to the lining and use wider darts so that the waist circumference does not change.

Pattern placement - This dress is pretty lean on fabric for all its effect.  Size 12 takes only 1.8 m of fabric.  Of course, this is all I had, so I could not do any pattern placement.  It just worked out as it worked out.  It would have been better if I did not have the lightest stripe across the widest part of my butt.

Shoulders - I bought this pattern because it had the cap sleeves, but like other reviewers, I found that the sleeves shift position when you are wearing the dress so that it is more like a sleeveless dress.

Underarms - the dress has very low underarms.  Different reviews show various methods of fixing this, including adding a piece or sewing up the side seams further.  I just folded a pleat out and topstitched it in place, as shown in the photo below.  This would be equivalent to the narrow chest adjustment that I often make if I cut a Size 12.

Marking - as other reviewers have noted, the instructions for this pattern are not always easily understood.  Take the time to mark the fabric properly before you start sewing.  I used little triangles at the notch points.  I would recommend this rather than little nicks in the fabric, as it makes it a bit easier to match your sewing with the Vogue illustrations.  My print was busy, so I used tailor tacks to mark the squares and circles.  I marked the pleat lines on the front with a fine-point sharpie, as I thought that would not be seen once the dress was made up.  Usually they aren't, but I noticed that they do peek out when lounging on the couch for reading homework.

I do like this dress and I will sew it again, probably in a dark, plain knit.  I should have made more effort with the hair / make-up, but life has been crazy busy lately....I just seem to look in my diary every hour or two to see where I should be going next.  I promise that when I wear it with heels, I will do my hair as well!  In the meantime, I am finding it a great grab and go casual dress.