The Dress of the Year.

1/8/2012-Edit: A couple of your comments made me realize that it might look as if I'm claiming that I made the two dresses I'm wearing in this post myself. To be clear, I did not make the dresses here, the purple dress was purchased at Nordstrom and the green dress was purchased at Goodwill. I'm showing the dresses as examples of styles that I think work for me and that I want to copy. I'm really sorry for any confusion that might have occurred before. I appreciate all the compliments but I don't want to take credit for something I haven't done.

I've been telling you about some of my New Year's resolutions this week. Here's another:

You'd never know it from this blog, or my current wardrobe, but I can sew. Actually, I can not only sew, I can fit commercial patterns and I can make my own original patterns in a number of ways. My first clothing related degree (I have two, soon to be three of those) was an associates degree in fashion design with an emphasis on custom sewing and alteration. I've been letting these skills lie fallow for a while but I'm going to remedy that in 2012. I'm calling this 'The Dress of the Year' because I'm planning to make this dress twelve times this year. I want to make one seasonally appropriate iteration of this dress each month for the next year.

I picked this pattern, Simplicity 2648, because of the multiple bust sizing options and the sleeve and neckline variations. I'd seen it made up by a blogger I like here and here. I wanted something with a fit similar to this dress:

NOT made by me. From Nordstrom

I wanted something with princess seams because they make for easy fitting adjustments during construction and after weight loss (fingers crossed.) I also wanted something with a waist seam so I can change the style of skirt easily once I've nailed the fit on the bodice, to create something more like this dress, for summer:

Also NOT made by me. From Goodwill.

I think this pattern fits the bill, allowing for enough variation that making twelve dresses won't get overly repetitive. I'm going to start working on my first muslin this weekend. I'm thinking the January dress should be view B, the sleeveless, scoop-neck version without a waist detail, made up in a black wool crepe. Super basic, but I've been wanting a simple black dress to wear under a colorful vintage coat I bought a while ago and can't seem to wear over anything I currently own. For February I'm going to make a 'resort' version for our island vacation.

The plan is that making this dress over and over will bring my sewing and pattern altering skills back up to peak fitness. Perhaps it will also inspire other sewing projects- the rules don't say I can't sew additional stuff, I just have to make this dress each month.