Laura’s Not An Angel Dress

So, you may or may not read the blog Made By Rae. I may. Uh, do. Anyways, she made this cute little shirt the other day, Rae’s Angel Top. Sooo cute. She named it thusly for the wingy sleeves, and it seems quite appropriate because it’s so pretty in white lace. Do check it out. She has a tutorial for it! I decided to follow it. I am a) special. b) special. c) super special. Because somehow… I made it a dress. A large one, width wise, although maybe a little short. And the sleeves ended about halfway down my torso. So I did some adjusting, and asked my handy sidekick / husband whether I should crop it back to a top or add a few inches to the bottom so as to not be looking like…. uhhh… a lady of the night.

First picture: This is my mannequin look???? Note my very natural hands. Second picture is slightly more normal.

You have to not look at my face. Nicole… I don’t know, ate 3/4 of? one of my last two contact lenses, and my face and hair pretty much gave up on today when I realized that. (Unsure what happened. But there was only a tiny piece of lens in the case thing… chalk up another one under the I Figured She Knew Better category.) I was gonna crop out my head in all these pictures and told my hubby that when he took them, but then I got lazy. Sorry about that.

As for the dress, I belted it. I belt everything. It’s hard to find a waist on me, my three year old is curvier than me, so I have to present an obvious visual that I do in fact have narrower parts on my torso.

This is the part where I’m tempted to tear apart my body but hey, I had a baby six months ago, and I’m average-sized, so I would be kind of lame to do so. I won’t promote that nonsense. Viva la love handles!  

These poses are a lot more natural. The first picture is, I think, probably the face I make most often, as it’s really hard to not find a photo of me making it. For a cheerful person I sure look like I smell something bad an awful lot. The second picture…. is… well, I’m a lunatic, I think we all knew that already.

So, the fabric is black and white striped knit and SOOOO COMFY. I could live in this dress. And it’s covered in cherries. Hello, sailor! is what I think when I see the dress. I bought it to make leggings for small children and then when I was working on a pair of leggings I made for Nicole (so cute, but I forgot to take a picture today) I got super selfish and decided I needed to have this fabric touching my body. I bought it as bolt end and I have no idea what the contents are other than ‘soft, soft goodness’ and probably cotton.

I’d like you to take a moment and marvel at the fact that I made it as long as the black and white fabric is completely by accident and was trying to make a shirt. Kind of amazing, isn’t it? Stunning, really. That is supposed to end at my hip.

If you’d like to take Rae’s Angel Top and turn it into a dress without adding a band at the bottom, I’d say make it around 42” long, give or take an inch or two depending how big you like your hem and how short you like your dresses. I’m a knee-length gal. I added a band, I also cut the neckline lower to make it nursing-friendly and added a neckband (and it’s been a while since I made anything like this so I accidently did not make it small enough so it doesn’t lie flat, boo, but since I yoink the neckline down to nurse anyways it would have been stretched out if it had been taut, so c’est la vie.)

So, in summary, I think if you have the body for it this TOTALLY makes a great dress for going out. I am sucking it in like you wouldn’t believe in these pictures, I have mummytummy from my somewhat recent 'had a baby’ incident so it would be at least a few more months before I could wear it like this out and feel comfortable. (The horizontal stripes don’t do a lot of favors there, a solid might have been more forgiving with the same cut) That said, if I had meant to make it a dress when I cut it I would have flared the waist out… or made it an empire top with an a-line bottom… something like that. I do love a good comfy dress, though, and I’ll put these beside the yogapants on the Comfy Things To Wear At Home That Don’t Make Me Look Like A Hobo category.

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