Hello!
Here is another little sundress I made more recently actually… just in late July if I recall correctly. I was so excited and getting ready for spring and it seemed like the perfect little spring-time thing… little did I know that winter was going to continue to grip us in its icy cold claws for a further few months.
Even so, I happily managed to don it for a few random warmish days in there, hurrah! I’m so excited to wear this lots and lots as the weather warms up more, because I absolutely love it!
Firstly, the fabric; is super lovely. It’s a linen cotton, but feels a lot more linen-y than cotton-y; with a crisp hand that crinkles a little. The print, Nerida Hanson “Magnolia” in the blue colour way, is really beautiful too, cool sea-blues and a big splashes of pink.
I based my design on the Nerida Hansen half-sleeve top pattern, but of course added some very wild modifications to make the most of the 2m I had… fortunately it’s a very wide 2m and I was able to cut out quite a voluminous and flouncy dress in the end!
I really love how my mods turned out and am seriously thinking I would love to make this style into a pattern one day! I know, I know; I have so many ideas for patterns but so little time. It’s a little sad for me, because I honestly love designing and making patterns and would love to do it a lot more than I do at the moment. My dream career, if you will :/
It is actually two very wide and deeply “flouncy” flounces both cut on long curved, asymmetric angles across the body.
Hemming was fun of course (sarcastic font) because of the bias… I left it to hang for quite a while before venturing to cut off the hemline evenly. I had no room for error! partly because I had zero leftover fabric to play with, and I had only managed to get a fairly short version of my idea from the 2m. I cut super super carefully, and got a pretty decent hem, I think.
I did start out with the eponymous “half sleeves” but for balance sake eventually cut them off quite short … I think the very voluminous skirt looks much nice with the shorter sleeves.
My dress also has pockets, of course.
The flounces were just not possible with just 2m of fabric of course; so each is comprised of multiple smaller wedges, cut both up and down and joined around to make a multi-sectioned piece. Basically using every single scrap of fabric possible. The result is good, I think; for the randomness of pattern placement; the fact that you don’t get that slightly obnoxious pattern repeat that you do if you cut things out the normal way. A little bit of every-which-way in pattern placement does wonders for the a visually pleasing aesthetic sometimes; if you have an obvious pattern repeat. I often think when I’m checking out designs on Spoonflower actually; that designs could be improved so much if they had a larger scale repeat. I mean; I’m no visual art expert by any means, but this is just an impression I get.
Probably explaining myself really badly here, sorry. At least I know what I mean!
“winterised” … as worn on the plane home from Velassaru
Anyway, I guess the long and short is that I am really happy with my new dress.
Gorgeous fabric and super flouncy!
I like your insight about mixing up the pattern. I think a different thing when I look at spoonflower: I am not interested in most of the patterns because the repeat is too small. your version is more creative than mine! Anyway I think you are right that this is a good solution and I am going to keep it in mind.