Vogue 8577 Dress

Don't you love it when you suddenly realise that a pattern and fabric that have both been sitting waiting to be used for too long are actually perfect partners for each other? That's exactly what happened to me in this project. I wanted to sew a Vogue 8577 dress last summer but didn't get around to it, and the cotton sateen fabric had been in my stash for about another year longer than that.

The Vogue 8577 pattern is for close-fitting, lined, button-front flared dresses, with a back yoke, gathering on the front bodice at the shoulders and feature side front pockets with pocket bands. There are two skirt lengths, sleeveless or short sleeved versions and the option of a fold back collar. I chose view A - sleeveless, a knee length skirt and no collar.

In terms of sizing, my measurements put me in a 16 at the bust and waist, and 18 at the hips. Obviously there's no need to worry about hip space with a skirt as full as this, so I made a straight size 16. I made a toile which fit me fairly well out of the packet. The only adjustments I needed to make were to add 1.5 cm to the bodice length (pretty standard for me), and to take a small wedge out of the side seams starting at 1.5 cm at the underarm and tapering to nothing at the waist (also fairly common for me on commercial patterns in particular).

I also made a couple of adjustments to the sewing process. Firstly, I didn't line the skirt; while a fully-lined dress is lovely, this fabric didn't need to be lined so cutting the rather big skirt pieces out of a lining fabric as well would almost have seemed wasteful. I also cut both the back and back yoke on the fold instead of having a seam down the middle, mainly to avoid breaking up this fairly large-scale print more than was necessary.

The sewing itself was no problem at all. Vogue 8577 is rated as easy, and I think that's probably fair. The instructions are clear and there aren't any massively tricky steps, although given that I've now been sewing clothes for five years (scary!), I'm not sure how I'd feel about tackling this pattern if I were a complete beginner. It's also worth noting that while this may be easy, it's not particularly quick as there are quite a few steps involved. I did enjoy sewing it though, and that's the main thing!

One of the main selling points of this pattern, namely its glorious full skirt, is also one of its disadvantages because it means that it's a bit of a fabric hog. For view A and my size, the pattern calls for 2.8 metres of 150 cm fabric and it's not one of the occasions where the pattern is being overly generous on the required yardage. My fabric was roughly 140 cm wide rather than 150, and I ended up using slightly over 3 metres.

The main fabric I used is a sea green and daisy print cotton sateen that I bought a couple of years ago (I think it was from Remnant House, but I can't be sure). I initially bought it to make a dress for my brother's wedding, then was a bit fickle and fell in love with a different fabric, so this one got put in my stash. I originally discounted it for Vogue 8577 because I thought the waist panels would break the print up too much and make it look a bit messy, but then I suddenly realised that using a coordinating plain fabric for the waist panels would solve that problem nicely. I ordered some plain navy sateen from Oh Sew Crafty, and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Like many sewists, I have a tendency to always feel like the latest dress that I've made is my new favourite, but this one really is one of my favourites that I've made for quite some time. Vogue 8577 is a lovely pattern - yes, it needs a fair amount of fabric, and it's not the quickest project to sew, but the end result is a really pretty dress that feels gorgeous to wear. I'd definitely be keen to make another if the right fabric comes along!