Snow White Apple Dress from Gertie’s Ultimate Dress Book

When I posted about the Charm Patterns Retreat that I went to in September, it dawned on me that I had never actually posted about any of the Charm Patterns I’ve made. Admittedly, that’s because I’ve been terrible about getting photos for them. I feel like I need to get dressed up for photos even though I don’t always get dressed up to wear them normally. But I went out and got some photos so I can share them with you!

This is the first Gertie/Charm Patterns dress I ever made (though not my first Charm Patterns pattern, but I’ll try to post that soon as well). I call it my Snow White dress because of the apples, the mix of blue and red and the gold/yellow in the zipper (those are all kinda Snow White colors). I also wear it every Rosh Hashanah because the apples are thematic for that. Let’s just say it gets lots of use.

I made this in a workshop with Gertie way back before the pandemic when I hosted her to teach a workshop at the makerspace where I work. We had a great time and I learned so much. She fixed some long standing fitting issues that I had been having and it was amazing having a dress fit like a glove. This was also before I had a moulage so this basic pattern was kinda like a sloper for me at the time. I promptly modified it to make a second pretty shortly after and that one is actually probably my most worn one. I’ll post it next.

The dress itself is from Gertie’s Ultimate Dress Book. It’s the basic dress with a jewel neckline with the 3/4 circle skirt. I wanted to wear it right away so I just did a quick and dirty serge and roll hem with the expectation that I could always trim that off and even it out if needed, but I’ve never bothered and never noticed any real issues. I believe I made the size 6 with some slight waist adjustments and a slightly raised bust dart. And otherwise it was pretty much as written. Oh, and of course it has pockets. And while I’m wearing it with some super cute peep toe shoes here, I actually normally wear it with some red leather flats.

When we went out to take photos, somehow neither my husband nor I noticed that my top totally wasn’t zipped up the whole time we were out. I didn’t notice until I got home and, of course, when I was looking at the photos. That’s how well it fits! It doesn’t even need to be fully zipped. Well, sorta. You can see some wrinkles on the right and that’s due to the fact that it wasn’t fully zipped. I may have also not noticed because I had a coat on most of the time that we weren’t taking photos because it has already gotten chilly. That’s also why I’m wearing pantyhose. It was just way too cold to go bare legged. On the upside, this gives you a chance to see the yellow zipper. It’s a lapped zipper so you don’t really see it much anyways, but I love having that little pop of color, even if I’m the only one who knows about it.

And I grabbed a quick photo of the back so you could see my pattern matching on the bodice (I didn’t bother on the skirt). This was one of my first forays into pattern matching so it’s not 100% but it’s pretty good. Some of my later dresses have significant improvements. (And you can just barely see one of my most recent Charm Patterns make on the right there . . . post coming as soon as I finish it and grab photos.)

The petticoat is this massive thing that I bought at Pettiskirt Style a long time ago and they seem to have gone out of business. It’s a shame because it’s seriously one of the awesomest, fullest petticoats that I have. It looks like there are some places where I can order a similar one on Etsy, but I can also make one. I’ve done that a couple times and it’s a lot of work though worth it if you need something custom. I actually bought it for a different dress, but then it turned out to be even more perfect for this one. Though it’ll be great for the sneak peek in the back photo above as well.

So that’s my first Gertie dress! I’ll post some others soon! There’s actually quite the collection now.