From Nightgown to Night on the Town

I used to be a huge fan of these floor length flannel night gowns.  I had two of them and I remember wearing them in the winter, under the duvet, and not being hot.  Somewhere along the way, I must have changed the duvet and it's much warmer because I can't even imagine wearing a flannel nightgown to sit on the bed, let alone to sleep under the covers with it on!

Those two sad nightgowns sat in my drawer for years and eventually made it into my sewing room where I was going to dismantle them and make something else out of them.  I like the flannel a lot, and it's hard to find a good flannel at fabric stores right now, so I didn't want to give these away.

I took apart one of them but this red one remained a favorite cat bed for a long time in my sewing room.  I'd look at it and think I should do something with it but then I'd see the cat hair and think I should wash it before I do anything and the cycle went on and on.  

After making a couple of Rhapsody blouses and dresses by Love Notions this summer, I got it in my head that I needed to make these nightgowns into dresses and the Rhapsody would be my pathway.  There are so many options with the Rhapsody.  I have a couple of tops that I made iwth sleeves of my own doing, a couple have ties and a couple don't.  

I also took the top of the Rhapsody and wanted a tiered dress so I found a pattern that had the measurements for tiers and I went crazy.  There's a pink and white striped seersucker dress around here somewhere that makes me feel like I look like a cupcake but I love it.

 I like the length of the Rhapsody dress but I don't like elastic at my waist.  I'm so short in my torso that anything at my actual waist makes me look even shorter, so I hunted for a pattern that I already have that had the right shape and length, without an elastic.

When I was a pattern tester for 5 out of 4 patterns, I tested the Savannah in the dress length which had the exact waist shape I wanted.  The two patterns are similar but the Savannah has a very difficult binding on the V and a dart, so the Rhapsody is easier, by far.  They both have a yoke that is part of the armscye so I wondered if it was possible to start the Savannah shaping below the Rhapsody yoke.  

The picture shows the back view of the Savannah.  On the back of both patterns, the yoke stops in the same place, so I just took the Savannah back, placed it alongside the Rhapsody back and made sure the part that goes into the armscye was the Rhapsody one and drew from there.  It ended up narrower than the back for the Rhapsody which is what I wanted because I feel like my last top was very billowy in the back.  I still gathered a very tiny bit but not as much as I normally would with the size I have been using.

On the front, I started right at the end of the armscye for the front on the Rhapsody and drew the Savannah on down.    My last Rhapsody blouse made me wonder if I should go down a size, especially for the back.  It's a very comfortable top, but it's not as shapely as it could be. I was a little worried that because the shaping at the waist is deeper on the Savannah, it might throw off the fit of the Rhapsody.  And since I was adding the button placket and my math is sketchy, it is entirely possible that the whole thing would end up too tight.

When I made the flannel blouse, I had already taken apart the sleeves from the other nightgown, so I laid the sleeves out flat and cut the upper edge to match the upper edge of the sleeve for the Rhapsody.  With this one, I didn't open up the seams on the sleeves because I didn't want to also interrupt the cuffs.  I debated trying to finagle the upper edge of the sleeve so I could cut it to match the pattern and then I decided that since it's such a generous sleeve, surely I could make it fit.  

I made sure to match up the side seams with the sleeve seams and keep the front going toward the front and the back toward the back.  I think they went in pretty well.

I am not much of a fan of big, luscious sleeves, and because this had been a nightgown, they sleeves had plenty of room.  They are much more full than I would choose for a dress but I think they work just fine.  And I was short on time the day I made this, so it saved a lot of steps not having to redo the sleeve seams and the cuffs.

I really like how this dress came out.  I barely had enough to squeak out the dress length because the front of the nightgown had those pintucks and the button placket, so I didn't have as much fabric to work with as it seemed.  The bottom of the side seams is less wide than my pattern pieces were but I actually like this width better so I didn't lose anything.

I ended up having enough fabric  to make binding for the neckline and the hem.  Because the hem is curved and I was short on time, I knew a deep hem was going to be a nightmare.  People say making binding is a pain and I agree, but I think it was less aggravating to make the binding and sew it on than it would have been to fiddle with the curve of the hem.  

I feel like the neck is a little naked in this.  I could wear it with pearls as people suggested but I think pearls are a little much for a flannel dress.  I debated doing something else around the neckline but nothing made sense to be.  I still have the collar from the nightgown but it looks like a nightgown collar so I know that would just be weird.

My initial intention was to make this early enough in December to wear it once or twice before Christmas.  I don't get dressed up for Christmas day but I do usually dress nicely for work.  I managed to start taking the nightgown apart in plenty of time to get this made but then other things came up in between and knowing I had to actually draw out the pattern, I couldn't get to it early enough.  If it were any other color but red, I'd wear it all winter, but I think it might questionable after Christmas.

Maybe I can get away with it once in January.