International Wear a Dress Day

Today I went to the cinema with a friend so decided to wear my NEW dress for the occasion. Also, Dress-a-Day has decreed today “International Wear a Dress Day”, so how could I not? Any excuse…

I’m quite proud of this dress. I made it specifically to go with this very expensive cardigan I bought several years ago. I’ve worn this cardigan with other things that have now gone the way of the Good Samaritan’s bin, and I needed to have something else for it to go with. I thought this polyester chiffon fabric was a pretty good match for the (silk) chiffon pockets on the cardigan (see detail picture below), and envisaged a floaty, dreamy, pretty summer dress.
The pattern, Vogue 7748, is one I bought years ago but not yet used, so I decided to give it a whirl. It seemed a good base for a wrap dress, with no frills. However I thought it was a bit too basic and I wanted just a few frills! I also wanted the final effect of the dress to be a kind of jumble of flowery colours, without a discernible pattern repeat. The addition of a few ruffles could help achieve this.
I cut each of the skirt pieces to half their supposed length. The right front, which ends up crossed over the left front in the finished garment, was further shaped in a curve up to the waistline. For each skirt piece, I joined together three large part doughnut shapes, and added these to the bottom of each of the skirt pieces.
I also added a double ruffle around the neckline, although only slightly ruffled as I’m not a very frilly person!
I didn’t make the belt in the pattern; but added long sashes to the waist edge of each dress front, and left a small gap in the right side seam for the left sash to pass through, so I can tie it at the back of the dress. I also added a sleeve detail (see below picture) to look more feminine and interesting than the plain hem indicated in the pattern.
The skirt hem and the neck ruffles were finished with a black rolled hem edge, done on the overlocker.
Because the fabric is see-through, I made a separate petticoat out of lightweight jersey (see below, modelled by Bessie). This is simply a tanktop bodice, copied from a tanktop I already had, and a quarter-circle each for the skirt front and back. This was just run up on the overlocker, and the edges left raw. Its just a petticoat after all, and the jersey won’t unravel or fray.