I’ve made a simple little dress… Now I have to admit that such apparent simplicity is actually the anticlimactic outcome of a long, convoluted sewing-and-unpicking, journey which I’m a little embarrassed to relate. This is one of the failed projects from 2024 which I mentioned in my roundup, and just recently got around to fixing up.
I’d bought this quite nice, slightly spongy, heavily textured cotton check a long time ago now, almost certainly from a Melbourne trip. I’m pretty sure it was Tessuti and further have a feeling it was reasonably expensive thus why I really wanted to make something worthwhile from it.
Iteration Number One:
I started out making the Original Digby Cleo dress. This is a lovely and feminine design, which involved stitching a LOT of self-made, bias-cut channelling for lengths of elastic, to mimic the look of a shirred bodice. I had high hopes and the result was very pretty, but sadly in the end it was just too young-looking to suit me. Cassie modelled it for me for these pictures here, but didn’t really want it either, and I wanted to make the fabric into something I could wear. Out with the unpicker!
Taking off all those long (long) lengths of bias cut channelling took quite a long time, made even more painful with the memory of how carefully I had stitched them on in the first place to perfectly line up the channels with the lines of checks, as well as switching up threads depending on whether I was stitching on a black row or a cream row, this additionally making it more difficult to see the stitches I was unpicking. I know, I wonder about my own sanity too, sometimes…
Anyway. Iteration Number Two was essentially the same dress sans the elasticated channels. I reused the same shoulder straps to be a halter neckline and allowed the otherwise unaltered dress to hang like so. I actually quite liked it like this and wore it with a little T-shirt underneath a few times.
However, after about six months of this I finally realised what the fabric really wanted to be. I believe fabrics do tell you what they want to be, even if it takes a little time. Some are shy and take years to let you know, but you just need to trust in the fabric, let it sit there quietly, and it will eventually let you know what its final form should be. Out with the unpicker once again!
In the end, Iteration Number Three, the final iteration, was very straightforward to achieve. I settled upon a modified version of a dress from the Japanese pattern book Stylish Dress Book by Yoshiko Tsukiori, specifically dress R. My final version is more narrowed at the top end, and with the yoke also narrowed in width and the neckline substantially more “filled in”. I also left off the sleeves through having absolutely no more of the check fabric anyway, and finished the armscyes with self-made black bias binding. I removed the original inseam pockets – and a big thank you to past me for overlocking all the raw edges separately from each other! – and repositioned them appropriately for the dress’s slightly new form. The yoke is black cotton denim, cut from the leftovers from my wide-leg jeans from last year, and lined with plain black poplin. I did decorative white topstitching just for fun, and added a completely frivolous and not-useful-at-all coin pocket to the front yoke, also for fun. I also reused the “made in 2024” tag that it had from its inception.
Small anecdote; I’d ordered new “made in 2025” labels from the same place Intensely Distracted, back in December. They were taking a long time to arrive, and I was just starting to wonder what on earth had happened to them when they finally showed up 2 days ago. Attached to the envelope was a big green “Opened for inspection by ABF” sticker, also inside was a little note explaining that my goods were opened and inspected by Australian Border Force and found to contain no problematic components so were being forwarded to me in full. Amazing that this very innocuous packet of sew in labels was suspicious enough to get yoinked out for a personal inspection…
Anyway, the dress! I’m so happy with its final iteration. I feel like such a bold check is most perfectly suited to a very simplified style like this, much more age appropriate, not too fussy and a lot more me. And it feels so lovely and light to wear. I absolutely love it! I first wore it just the other day, when I took my oldest grandson Arthur shopping for his 5th birthday present. I know, 5 already! I can hardly believe it. We had such a lovely morning shopping together, just the two of us, choosing something he liked. It was so funny because he liked literally everything! and it was actually quite difficult to narrow it down to just two things. Then after we got home we spent a bit of time playing with his new toys and it was such a nice time. I love being a Granny!
please excuse the totally gratuitous Clara pic…
Hello!
The sleeve pieces are absolutely massive and the result is lovely in my opinion! a very pretty, half pirate-y, half mediaeval sort of effect!
