Colette Macaron: Balloons and Bubbles

What a cute little pattern the Colette Macaron is.  It took me some time to grow to love it.  I really don't care for the version on the Coletterie website or any of the versions I've seen using white on the top.  I think Patty the Snug Bug hit the nail on the head and helped me discover why I dislike it that way.  It reminds me of the spaghetti strap dress over a white t-shirt look from the 90's.  I wore it.  I don't want to go back.

I have wanted Sarah Jane Children at Play Balloons in Aqua for a very long time and when it came back in stock at Fabric.com after Christmas, I had money and I had a vision.  I tried to grow it up a bit with the grey for the top.  When I was at Hancock with my balloon swatch the bubblegum pink was calling very loudly that it wanted to be included, but I was too fearful that I would make an adult-sized toddler dress if I used pink for the accent color.

You might notice the skirt on mine is a liiiiiitle different than the pattern.

so proud of my truly invisible invisible zip!

back view

I had  a heck of a time fitting the bodice.  I made a muslin because I knew I wanted a flawless fit, as much as that could be achieved.  Once I was satisfied that I wasn't going to need a small bust adjustment,  I cut into the real fabric.  I really love the fit I finally got, but I did all sorts of tweaks that were too random for me to even document, so that means I'll have to be prepared for another roller coaster ride when I decide to pick this pattern up again.  

I had to completely remove the darts from the mid-back and change the curved seam between the two back pieces to a straight seam.  I took in the sides near the arm pit and went diagonally out to the original seam allowance at the waistband, which was almost too small!

The bubble skirt was just an idea that I had after I saw a beautiful coral vintage dress on Pinterest that had a bubble hem.  I decided to be ambitious and figuring out all the proportions and the pockets and the gathering and everything really ate up a lot of time.  From beginning to end, including all the unpicking and even some handsewing I had to do, this dress probably took me 8-10 hours.
There's still more work to do on it.  I've got to finish it a bit better on the inside.  I should probably reinforce some seams and I probably need to add some sort of waist stay because this skirt is pretty weighty.

orange underneath for fun

pockets!  in between the outer and inner layers of the skirt.

I'm quite happy with the fit finally achieved on the bodice.

I really enjoyed seeing the sleeves come together.  That was a really genius part of the pattern for sure.  I would love to have more patterns with unique, sweet details like this.

I'm glad I took the time to make this dress look nice.  I've never spent this long on one piece before, but it was a good exercise for me to just be patient and hack away at it a little at a time.  Now I really have something I can be proud of.

I'll be wearing it on Valentine's Day next. :)