Off With Her...(Droopy) Yoke!

First, I'd like to say, there was an actual sunny day this week, with shiny black crows in the trees and everything:

So, to work:  I did shear off a good portion of the yoke of M5659 because the Newport News dress didn't have such a droopy yoke and I liked it better.  I also extended the dress front up into the armscye because it looked awkward just stopping so randomly in the middle of the yoke at the dots.  Not sure what that will do to the dots, I'm guessing it will just eliminate them and I'll slide the dress front up into the remodeled yoke with less fussing.  By the time I was finished slicing and dicing to a better shape, I'd lopped off any intended seam allowance, so I slapped the yoke to a cardboard box and added the allowance back in.  Now it looks exactly the same as when I started. 

After staring at it, chopping it to bits, re-adhering it's allowance and finally photographing it, I do realize that this pattern has an oval yoke, while the dress I'm in love with as a neat, higher, circular yoke.  An oval is just a droopy circle, so you see the dilemma.
The Newport News trapeze dress also had three front pleats as opposed to the one large center pleat in the commercial pattern.  To create more space for the additional two pleats, I cut the front of the dress larger on the center line by 4" (adding 2" to each side, which in my world makes more space for bust line) and intend to pleat it twice more hanging from the center bust on each side, ie, the princess lines.  I also played with the idea of cutting the pattern on those princess lines and adding the fabric in there.  Perhaps that would be more technically correct?  I really don't know, but not sure that it will make much difference.  (And yes, I've run into trouble with that thought before!)
Regardless, I think she's had enough for one night, don't you?

Lost New Year's Dress

Around October or November (last) I received my much-anticipated Newport News Holiday catalog.  I love just about everything that they make and if I was very wealthy I'd simply call them and order one of everything in black and wait for the delivery truck.  Since that's not an option, I decided to make this neat dress, which I loved so hard (ripped out of the catalog and wrinkled to death) that I couldn't even scan it, so here is the dress from the site:

I thought about this dress a whole lot.  It's hard to see the jewels and crystals on the yoke, but they are delightful!  Then I decided, (about a week before Christmas) hey!  why not make this dress for Christmas Eve dinner and service!  And that didn't happen for about nine-hundred very good reasons.
And then New Year's Eve also came and went, and by gum, I'm going to have me this dress regardless of holiday or no holiday.   I found the near-exact crystals at Michael's and I found this McCall's pattern:

Similar, but not identical, so out came the scissors, tape and paper.  (Yeah, I want this dress that bad.  I also love a good challenge.)

'So, what's so Edwardian about this dress?' you might ask: Hand applied beading and working with silk.  While I cut the bulk of this from a gorgeous black rayon from my stash, I did end up buying 1 yard of black silk dupioni on sale.

'Wait!,'  you say.  You bought something?!  What household bill did you pay?!  I paid on my dental bill and negotiated a more do-able payment arrangement.  Black silk is worth all that.  Yes.