rusty lace Cissy dress (Homer and Howells)

I’ve made this rather awesome new dress, if I say so myself!!   Paprika!!  Rust!!  Kinda… burnt orange/dark red/burgundy/wine!!!  It has a strongly autumnal-flavour in colour and feel, but actually it’s beautifully cool and breezy enough for summer too.  I wore it today and it was super comfortable in spite of the 38C heat.  Phew!

The pattern is the Cissy dress pattern by new company Homer and Howells; I discovered and started following them on instagram a few months ago and was thrilled when they asked if I would like to try out this particular design… because I knew it would make a lovely summer frock  🙂

I had this glorious richly-coloured lace that’s been languishing in my stash for hmmm goodness knows how long … I can barely remember its purchase!  I’m pretty sure I bought it at Tessuti’s in Melbourne on one of my holidays over there with Mum and Cassie.  Like about 95% sure.  #youknowthingsarebadwhen…  It’s one of those fabrics I’ve taken out and petted every now and then, even laid out pattern pieces on it before having second thoughts, but finally I felt this particular project was just the right thing.

The pattern is an exceptionally easy thing to make.  It does have pockets, beautiful great big pockets too, absolutely perfect; but in the spur of the moment I just couldn’t think of a way of inserting them nicely or invisibly enough into my underlined lace dress, so left them out this time.  Who even am III????!! but really.  I’m a little ashamed I didn’t think a bit harder, because right now I can think of two separate ways I could have made it work, hmmm.  But I’m feeling too stressed out to unpick all that overlocking to put some in right now.  Maybe later.  After the wedding…  🙂

Of course I needed to underline, because it’s lace, and therefore completely see-through.  I had a length of white cotton in my stash too, inherited from Mum’s stash; that was just the right sized piece, and I thought the white underneath would be really cool.

But you know what? it wasn’t … when the dress was finished, I decided the white cotton was actually really awful; just too harsh of a contrast.  So I dunked the completed dress into a dyepot of mixed orange/red/brown/hot pink dyes.  And now I think it’s lovely!  the underlining is almost the same colour now, just a shade lighter than the lace, and I think absolutely perfect.  I’m really going to enjoy wearing this chic thing!!

Notes; I shortened the sleeves by about 9cm, and the dress by about 17cm from the top edge.  At full length, the dress was just a little too “granny-ish”, and yes I know I AM now an actual granny! but there’s granny-chic which is cool; and then there’s just “granny” but not in a chic way.  The lace that I chose, combined with the long skirt tipped the original look into the latter but I do really love it at this slightly shorter length!  I actually do have fabric in mind for this pattern at the designed-for longer length, but that will probably not happen until after Cassie and D’s wedding… ha!  I have so much to do!!!  #notevenlaughing  #cryingjustabit #ineedaholiday

I managed to incorporate the natural scalloped lace edge into the hemline, which I think is super pretty! but sadly didn’t have enough lace do the same for the sleeves.  They’re just hemmed.

Details:

Dress; Homer & Howells Cissy dress pattern, lace with dyed cotton underlining
Shoes; caramel/ivory clogs are made by me, and my own design, all details here. White shoes are also made by me, at a shoe camaraderie workshop, all details here