Monthly Archives: March 2020

So, I made this beautiful (I think) dress for Cassie’s wedding.

I had early settled upon the beautiful bohemian Carole dress by Fibre Mood … for several reasons.  Firstly;  I already have the pattern printed out AND had made it up previously too and so knew I didn’t need to do any more special fittings of the pattern to myself.  Time-saver!  And secondly, I thought it was a gorgeous style too, of course!

I found the beautiful floral print in Fabulous Fabrics.  It is a silk/cotton and the most divinely luxurious stuff to sew and to wear.  It is also just about completely see-through, so my dress is underlined fully with soft ivory lining fabric.

I basted underlining and outer shell pieces together along the seamlines first, then overlocked the raw edges together before stitching the seams

The underlining is cut 4cm shorter than the dress with a machine-finished hem, but the outer shell hem is stitched in a narrow hem with tiny fell-stitches.  I hand basted the facings to the underlining with tiny invisible stitches at both the front fold and the overlocked edge to the inside too.

My label!

Side view… I absolutely adore the gentle high-low nature of this beautifully twirly hem!

So I actually made this dress back in January, when I had a bit of spare time in between bridesmaids and bridesmaid fittings, and I’m so glad I did.  The last little bit leading into the wedding was SUPER stressful…

this counts as my make-nine-but-actually-twelve thing for March…

and OH! I almost forgot! just like I did for Tim’s wedding outfit, I quickly whipped up a matching bra and undies for this outfit too…

Well… it sorta? matches?!  I think it’s close enough, anyway.  It was actually damn difficult to find fabric even vaguely matching in either colour or design!

I used my favourite pattern the Watson by cloth habit, and cotton jersey from Spotlight.  The red ribbons were saved from an old, also me-made, lingerie set, and I made my usual two pairs of matching knickers…

Details:

Dress; the Carole pattern by FibreMood, silk/cotton from Fabulous Fabrics
Lingerie; the Cloth Habit Watson
Shoes; Zomp, from the Zomp boutique

I took these pictures back in mid-January, so this is the happy face of a woman who has not even heard of the novel corona virus… so hard to remember those innocent times now!

I’m a bit torn here; I’ve either finished saying everything I need to say about the dress, OR I can address the obvious elephant in the room.

As mentioned, I actually made the dress way back in January, when I hadn’t fully got revved up with the more … maybe important? shall we say? wedding sewing, and decided to just run mine up in a quiet week, in between bride and bridesmaids’ fittings, and before things got more hectic.  And, oh my gosh, but did they get more hectic.  I was making Cassies’, very involved, wedding dress, and her three bridesmaids’ dresses, this dress here, and I also ended up making my Mum’s dress too, when she was getting overwhelmed at the thought of it.  It’s been … a lot… emotionally as well as workload-wise.  As well of course as we all know; approaching like an invisible tsunami from the other side of the globe was Covid-19; and none of us had any concept just how much the world was going to change in the following few months.  I really really appreciate that we are so extremely lucky here in Perth to be so isolated, that the situation here is far far less severe than in other countries, and that our government is right on top of things and has shut down the country in, hopefully, good time.

So yes, Cassie’s wedding did indeed go ahead; with good fortune the date was set for the very last weekend before restrictions started to really ramp up here in Perth, Western Australia.  When I say ramped up, well the number of people allowed at a gathering have been reduced, and reduced and reduced!  specifically, first it was 500, which went quite rapidly down to 100, then to 10, then 5, then 2!  At the time of the wedding, the number was 100.  Let me say; I’m not complaining, and I am most definitely very pro-lockdown to control the spread of the virus, but at the same time I have to admit to being so very retrospectively glad that the timing of our wedding meant we were able to go ahead as planned.  We were worrying right up until the night before, when we got the legal go ahead with very few adjustments needed.  We were fortunate that our numbers were already small, we had no guests that were coming in from out of the country or even the state, our venues were big enough to comply with the (at the time) 4 square metres per person rule, and we had already made preparations to protect our elderly relatives, like face masks and hand sanitiser – purchased at great expense! was available at each venue.  We also pro-actively made a no contact rule; absolutely no hand-shaking, hugging or kissing.  It is so so strange to lay out these guidelines for a wedding, but these are very strange and scary times and such rules helped put everyone’s mind at peace.  Everything went off as planned, and a couple of weeks later everyone is still healthy and well, for which we are so enormously relieved that I can hardly find the words for it.

It’s almost impossible for me to reconcile this time when we were fully allowed to gather together to celebrate our darling daughter’s wedding as a family; with now, a few weeks later, when we are not seeing anyone in our family AT ALL.

Anyway, that’s the story.  Small things to worry about really, at a terrible and terrifying time like this.  I sincerely hope everyone who reads this is safe and healthy, and continues to be so, and that you and your loved ones are able to access good health care if you should need it.