For the 16th post in my  series, the letter P, I chose to sew a pattern I found on the New Zealand blog “Pattern Scissors Cloth”. The Ruby Slip, posted on 12/10/11, is available as a free downloadable pattern. Sherry, the blogger behind Pattern Scissors Cloth, also hosted a sew-along for the pattern on 12/12/11.

Unfortunately, Pattern Scissors Cloth is no longer an active blog, but you can still download the Ruby Slip pattern here and access the sew-along here. Although I found the Sew-Along extremely helpful, I didn’t follow the pattern for this slip exactly. I already had a vintage slip that fit well in the bodice but was too tight elsewhere. (Yup, the story of my life). I was drawn to the Ruby Slip pattern because it’s cut on the bias. I’d read that bias cuts are slimming and admired the way bias cut gowns seem to skim the body in photographs. So I just cut out the bias skirt portion of the Ruby Slip and sewed it to my existing lace bodice.

The only problem with using the vintage bodice was that the only slinky fabric I had in my stash was dark brown. The lace bodice didn’t look right with my stash fabric – the combination of the light lace with the dark brown skirt wasn’t ideal. I thought about dying the lace, but didn’t think the dye would take on polyester. But the vintage slip also had a matching lace band around the hem so I decided to try appliqueing some of the leftover lace onto the dark brown fabric. I thought this might tie the pale lace bodice into the very dark skirt. I appliqued 3 roses from the lace to the skirt, shown in close up below. I think the applique idea worked to tie the disparate colors together. I like this slip, which I’ll be using as a nightgown. But re: the bias cut making one appear slimmer, when I put the gown on that theory was proven wrong! Luckily while I was thinking “yikes, my butt is the size of Texas in this”  (which is why I’m not actually modeling the nightgown on this blog) my husband said “Wow, that’s pretty”. Yup, he’s sweet like that sometimes – guess I’ll keep him.