Sewing Retro! 1994 Vogue 8696 Dress a.k.a. My Grandmother's Mumu

Very Easy Very Vogue 8696. The dress I loved, ruined, but will probably be able to fix.

However, I did a little sewing. I put together this ugly little number from a vintage 1994 pattern. I was supposed to look like the cute little maxi my friend wore to our dinner party at the beginning of the month. Turns out it looks like a mu mu. I hate mumus. The even worst part about it is I hate slips, so I lined this dress and now it is noisy. You know, this dress was a big mistake, but I'll post it here with some comments.

The front of my "mumu". Not very Vogue.

The back of my "mumu". Even less Vogue.

This dress isn't the end of the world, it's just a little embarassing. I'll fix it someday. Probably not today. This dress uses A LOT of fabric. I can't emphasize it enough. The skirt is a full circle or more at the bottom and is fairly fitted at the waist (although my version doesn't reflect this). I only paid a dollar a yard for this fabric. It was supposed to be for a junker prom dress version for my niece. I ended up liking the material after she changed her mind and made this dress with it.

The pattern goes together very easy. I strongly recommend a sample before you spend a lot of money on expensive material. I ended up using something like 7 yards of 60" fabric. This dress could easily creep beyond $50 of material. I wanted to match the pattern, so it was a pain laying it out on the floor in the living room because the pieces are so big,, and then keeping the cats off it.

I will make this dress again with a high priced/higher quality solid color that is quiet. I can't emphasize the importance of quiet material enough. I know this sounds strange, but this is the noisiest dress I own and it was supposed to be a casual dress.

I give the pattern a thumbs up, my sewing skills, fabric choice and overall judgement on this pattern a definite thumbs down.