A week and a half ago, I posted my update on my second Marvelous Mrs. Maisel dress recreation, hoping that I would soon be able to post the finished product. It’s a dress I began working on many months ago, and have probably been planning since last September when I first saw it in the Miami After Dark scene on the show.

A few days after that post went live, I was determined to finish the dress once and for all. I started by removing the straps I had originally put on the dress. I didn’t like how dark the coral color was, and I wanted something lighter.

I cut out new straps using the original modified pattern piece I had made. I also decided at this point that I was not going to double layer the chiffon. Instead, I stabilized the raw edges before hemming. I deduced that this would serve two purposes: to make hemming the chiffon easier and, most importantly, make the straps stronger when the dress was on.

Once the straps were stabilized, I hemmed the raw edges. I needed to decide at this point how I was going to create the gathers in the shoulder points. Yes, gathers would be one option, but my original version had gathers and they seemed very bulky to me. Instead, I decided to try pleats.

I did the pleats and ended up French seaming the shoulders for a neater finish. Pleats worked SO much better (though I will admit they kind of look more like gathers in this photo) and were so much cleaner than the gathers had been.

After that it was time to hem. I used the Sew Over It Full Circle Skirt pattern, and normally I would machine hem this, but for this particular skirt I decided that slip-stitching the hem would allow the skirt to fall better. However, this came with A LOT of commitment to hand sewing. But after what felt like a mile of hem… the dress was done!

I am so beyond thrilled with it!

The skirt is wonderfully twirly, especially when paired with a crinoline (I actually bought one specifically to take these pictures).

I had so much fan taking all these pictures, though I was racing against the clock last Friday to get them done after I got home from work. My usual photo wall has brilliant, even natural light most of the day, but when the sun starts to set, it becomes too sunny and bright along that wall (you can see in the bottom left corner of all these images that the sun is starting to roll in). So I worked fast and tried as many fun poses as I could before I lost the good light.

Hopefully you’re as much of a Maisel fan as I am and don’t mind the caption-less collection of photos I just dropped, but I love this one so much and want to show it off from every angle possible!

Although this project took a long time, a lot of that was due to procrastination and me being lazy and not having a ton of sewing motivation over the summer. However, once I hunkered down and focused on it, it moved quickly and wasn’t altogether all that difficult to do. Even manipulating the pattern piece to be what I wanted wasn’t all that hard, and I think I underestimate my skills in that area. The more I sew, the more I realize that I can visualize pattern pieces pretty well, so I was happy to have a chance to stretch that skill with this project.

Now that I’ve made two fancier Maisel dresses, I have my sights set on a more “casual” one (cause lets face it, most Maisel dresses would be considered fancy by today’s standards… not by me, of course, but most people!). I think this one is up next:

I already have the closest fabric I could find, just need to figure out the pattern! So stay tuned for more Mrs. Maisel fun!