The Dress That Almost Wasn't!

This dress featured in the April edition of Burda Style was the whole reason I bought the magazine.  I love the simple lines and even the colour.  When I got home I realised that it was designed to be made in suede.  Leather or suede is not something I would normally associate with summer time so I was immediately on the lookout for an alternative.  The original fabric I chose was actually a print which I made up here   .  On further inspection of the pattern, it quickly became aparent that there were far too many panels in this dress to work successfully with such a busy print.

Again I was on the hunt for a more suitable fabric.  My mother inadvertantly came to the rescue with a piece of crepe that had been sitting in her cupboard for a few years.    I was a little concerned that the beige crepe was not quite right for my skin colour so I immediately thought of adding some red piping to trim it.  I had a roll of red synthetic knit fabric which although wasn't ideal because it was a knit, with the addition of some very thick knitting wool actually became a very trim and pliable piping.  Piping added, my thoughts soon turned to lining.  I dug through my cupboard again and found a remnant of dress lining in just about exactly the colour of the dress.  The original dress didn't call for lining so by now I was sewing freestyle.  It was about this time that I became well acquainted with my unpicker.  Although I made my size up according to the measurements in the book, I really could have made the dress a size smaller so I needed to make quite a few alterations.  I was making a phone call while altering what I thought was one of the side seams and actually ended up cutting the wrong panel....oops!  Two new panels had to be cut and restitched.

The final straw with this dress was as I was overlocking the hem of the dress, my commercial overlocker managed to spew oil onto the dress in two places....darn it!  Now I have to spot clean it.    I am really happy with the final result, but had I known how much trouble a relatively simple dress would cause me I don't think I would have made it.

Today was stormy, and the kids are still on holiday so dressing up for a photo was put in the too hard basket.  Next week once they are back at school I will put up some photos of the dress on.....minus the oil stain of course!