I tried, honestly I did! I tried to make this dress work for Julie, then for Addy, but it just wasn’t coming together. I read and re-read all of your comments… and thought I’d just go with Marilyn’s suggestion of making the dress a midi length, add some boots and maybe a pair of lacy socks and add a choker and a shoulder bag… but I just couldn’t get things to come together. So many of you liked the straighter skirt on the bodice, but I kept thinking the sleeves were so dressy and how could I make it all tie together with just a ribbon around her waist?
Conni said why not just add the long skirt back on and call it Jeanne Marie Couture?
Dorothy wondered “why” the dress had to be a “period” dress… was it destined to ONLY be a 70’s dress, or a Civil War dress, or something else?
Judi thought the bodice of the dress looked a little too big… so I studied that…
Kathie liked the fuller skirt and thought the tiers balanced out the sleeves… hmmm…
Several people thought the dress needed the skirt attached a little higher up…
So many suggestions and thoughts… so what did I do? I turned to the internet (again) and first I typed in 1970’s dresses and all of your typical dresses came up… Flowing Caftan dresses, mini dresses, brightly colored dresses, etc…
I kept looking, until a dress from a 70’s collection in Japan came up.. I did a screen shot of it off of my computer and it was the first thing I had seen that I liked… something with a starting point… so I proceeded to mimic it…
I cut off 3/4″ on the bodice and added a few gathers under the bust to take up any fullness there… then I added a waist band that hit sort of on the rib cage area… so far, so good… I thought!
I gathered up the one piece of fabric that I had left to use for a skirt and held it up to the bodice and midriff band…
Nope, that wasn’t working for me…
So I looked over at my dolls on the dolly shelf and saw Samantha standing there and thought, I wonder what it might look like on a brunette? Would her darker hair pick up the brown in the edges of the sleeves? Samantha did have more pinky tones to her skin than Julie… hers were more peachy! Samantha was a more dainty doll and this dress was reading too “girlie” to be a 70’s dress…
Anyway, this is what Samantha looked like in it…
It isn’t hemmed yet, or the back finished, but it looked the prettiest on her so I’m moving forward making it an Edwardian/Victorian dress! I stole the pearl necklace Rebecca had made for the peach watercolor Regency dress that didn’t sell and used it…
I think it looks feminine and sweet on Samantha and hope I can keep going with her…
I do have something… this…
…that is a perfect match to the flowers in the fabric and who knows what that might become??? ;o)
I put my other dolls back on the dolly shelf and will concentrate on finishing this for Samantha…
Who knew a dress could be so difficult to find a doll that looked good in it? Hope you like it!
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Blessings, Jeanne