For those who do not know, I turned twenty this past July I had planned on making myself a dress for this celebration, but unfortunately didn’t finish it until January whoops!
To celebrate the beginning of my third decade I had decided to make myself a dress. I had no idea as to what I had in mind but I did know I wanted a poofy-ish skirt with a gathered skirt. Something simple that could be worn to special events.

I found a pattern and set to work. The dress pattern was a bit of a challenge but I loved the end result even though because of procrastination, busyness, and forgetfulness it took me six months to finish!

The Sabrina Dress in Blue 

In the spring of 2019, I  borrowed a sewing book from the library called Famous Frocks: The Little Black Dress which included twenty patterns to make a copy of some famous little black dresses worn in the last 80 years. The dresses were cute and had some very nice variations so it could be a mix and match between pieces.

 

After perusing the book for the tenth time I settled on the iconic Sabrina gown. No, not the iconic white column dress with the overlay skirt covered in black embroidery but the black cocktail gown with the extremely poofy skirt, boat neckline, and the tiny waist.

The sewing process of this dress is divided into two parts. One where it was seemingly finished but I didn’t like it and part two when the ribbon was added and finally wore it.

the process

For those new to my blog, one of the things that I absolutely love is thrift stores. Most of them are cheap and have an abundance of books and vintage items. One of the things I’m always in search of is fabric.

Fabric stores are costly and through thrifting, I have found some very expensive (remember the Armani fabric?) and lovely material, books and patterns. One of my finds was this light blue pinstripe-like woven fabric. Retails for about $12/meter and I got two meters for $3!!!

The directions in the book to make the dresses were simple enough but definitely not for beginners. There were some techniques that I learned years ago but others I had never tried before.
Although the design I chose seemed simple enough, I had never done princess seams before and let me tell you that it was hard.

Related post: 70s Maxi Dress

Princess seams are challenging because the curve must be perfectly sewn so it will fit the bust, while at the same time not be extremely noticeable but things can easily go awry. I had some trouble trying to get the seam to lay flat but it was not to be. As you can see in the pictures there is puckering in the bust region, which is not supposed to be there.

But it wasn’t until my winter break in early January that I actually sat down in front of my sewing machine to finish my Sabrina dress.

Made some bows out of the ribbon for the straps, hand-sewed it on then started on the process of the hem. The dress was long, so what I did is that I folded upwards on the inside four inches of fabric then sewed the rest of the ribbon on top of it to hide the hem. Plus I also did take in the sides of the dress a bit on the sides, which kinda made the skirt poofier.

And that’s it!

   Loren

Afterward

After almost six months the dress was finally worn! With all of the adjustments, it not only looked great but if fit wonderfully. The design is fairly simple and with the ribbon, the dress is much cuter. Besides the color and the lack of poofiness, it does resemble the dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina.

I wore it to church (and in public) and got many compliments on it which was nice. I have plans to make another in the future, but this time with black fabric and a poofier skirt so it resembles more like Hepburn’s dress.

I definitely recommend the pattern as it is easy-ish for those who already sew as the techniques and the structure of the dress may be too hard for beginner sewists.

This is definitely a dress that will be worn again and again. 

Also, if you’ve noticed one of the labels of this post is through the eras (specifically decades), one of my other plans is to use a pattern/style from each decade from the 20th century. So far I’ve done the 70s, 80s and now 50s, I’m still thinking about what I’ll sew next.

What do you think? Does it resemble the Sabrina dress?

Til next week
Loren Camila