I made a sundress using my autumn leaves fabric, screen-printed by me here. Those who like wonky weird imperfect prints are going to like this, if you don’t, then avert your eyes!
The pattern is an adaption of dress T, from the Stylish Dress Book, the design Reana chose for me to make my sew bossy dress here, which now looks like this. That one is such a great dress to wear; so comfy and easy to throw on it has quickly become one of my favourites 🙂
For this new dress I didn’t have enough fabric to make up the pattern as is. I left off the sleeves, and removed about 15cm in width from the centre fold of both the skirt front and back, so there is no gathering into the bodice … that’s a whole foot taken out of the skirt’s circumference overall! and there was still plenty of room in the skirt for me to have inseam pockets. I cut these from a much nicer, lightweight white swiss dot cotton.
The front neckline of the bodice has been scooped out a bit deeper than the pattern, and I split the front bodice and made a little placket, with buttons and buttonholes. Just because, I dunno (shrug), something to focus on other than those weird and wonky leaves. The front and back bodice each have a full facing, cut from a lightweight plain white cotton.
Hehe… would you believe I’ve only just noticed, when I uploaded this picture? that one of the leaves on the front of the bodice is missing its stem?? Only just noticed! LOL! And while drawing them in I checked and checked… I’ve fixed this up now, but didn’t bother to take another picture.
I’m a bit meh about this dress, partly because my print is … funny; and partly because the fabric itself is a pretty poor quality. It is a bit stiff and almost calico-like in texture. Now I’m kinda kicking myself I didn’t take the risk and buy a finer quality cotton in the first place, problem was, I had no confidence in myself and started out with the assumption I was going to stuff it up. I will wear the dress, because it’s airy and cool and will be great to have in the wardrobe in the hottest days of summer when I just want to grab something casual, and I’m hoping it will soften up over time with wear and washing. The thing is, I usually judge my self-mades by posing the question; would I buy this if I saw it in a store? And realistically I would probably pass this over, laughing at its hideousness. Oh well.
A thought… I can always use it as an apron, for future screen-printing sessions?! Ha!
I did learn something pretty important in printing and making this dress… Cut out the pattern pieces before printing!
This approach is hugely superior to printing a length of fabric and then deciding what to make with it, like I did here. Several reasons…
There is less wastage of fabric ink and your own effort, since you are not printing fabric that you won’t use.
You can make sure that the print is properly covering the pattern piece as you are going along.
You can if desired place the print just exactly how you want it to appear on the piece.
It’s guaranteed that you will have enough fabric printed to make what you want, there’ll be no laying down the pattern pieces and being disappointed that you underestimated just how much you would need.
Another consideration… there will be no angst when cutting into your precious print since it is already cut out and ready to go!
And, learning from my own mistakes… yes, I have already sewn together my giant polka dot pieces too, and I’m pretty happy with that one….. Stay tuned! 🙂
Details:
Dress; based upon dress T from the Stylish Dress book by Yoshiko Tsukiori, screen-printed ivory cotton
Hat; Vogue 8844, ivory corduroy, details and my review of this pattern here
