Elizabeth & Billie Jean

Don't you just love this photo?! The best!

With all the Winifred pattern hype of late its been easy to miss out on all the other wonderful makes everyone else has been sewing up from all the other patterns. So today i have the awesome Elizabeth from sewnbyelizabeth sharing her Billie Jean dress, as well as some thoughts on how she came about sewing up such a gorgeous version.

What type of fabric did you use? What inspired your choice of fabric?

I had originally thought to make the pencil skirt version and bought a red and white weave tweed, but after finding a beautiful light weight vintage sheet at the opshop I was too tempted by a full spring dress. I cannot wait for next spring to get lots of wear from the dress. 

Did your Billie Jean dress  live up to the image you had in your mind?

The dress turned out even better than I had imagined! I often over-think pattern and fabric matches and talk myself out of different ideas. With this dress I jumped straight in and the final product turned out amazing. I'm so glad I went with it. 

How did you decide to reflect your personal style in the pattern? 

My style is reflected in the colours, floral pattern and length. I adore the colour palette of the fabric: cream, pink/coral, light purple and white. These are the colours I like to wear a lot of  in warm weather, paired with brown sandals and sunglasses, of course. I'm a sucker for floral fabric. Floral can be worn all year round, right? 

Tell us a bit about your making process, any tweaks you made?

The Billie Jean bodice is meant to be quite fitted. I think I must take very big breaths as I needed much more ease than expected. Because of this I used smaller seam allowances and inserted a regular invisible zipper rather than a lapped zipper. I took quite some length off the dress as the I don't find the mid calf length flattering on me. Other than this, I followed the instructions and the dress sewed up very quickly and neatly. 

What thoughts do you have about the project?

This dress was my first time sewing princess seams and it's converted me. I look forward to sewing up another Billie Jean and trying other patterns with them. They are such a flattering shape while making fitting a breeze. The big skirt and shape of the straps are wonderful. After finishing the dress I put it straight on and floated around the house swirling around in the full skirt. This dress makes me feel like a princess barbie cake. 

Are you planning any future Billie Jean dresses?

My next Billie Jean will of course be the red and white tweed pencil. A perfect dress for a Melbourne winter. 

Head on over to Elizabeth's blog for more sewing goodness sewnbyelizabeth.