Photo belongs to Sailor Rose
Hi everyone! I haven't been around for ages; there just doesn't seem to have been enough time in the days for sewing as well as everything else, so I haven't sewn for ages, hence the blogging absence. Exercising regularly and walking my doggie twice a day (long walks) seems to have filled in the sewing gaps. However......the other day I happened to be looking at something-or-other online (as one does) and, heaven knows how, but I came across something almost totally unrelated to my original quest (as always seems to happen!) and suddenly felt the urgent need to create. Maybe I just needed something to kickstart my sewing mojo again. After all, most of us don't have the time to sew, but we make the time (same with exercise!)
The "something" was the above dress. Now I remember, I'd been looking for the fabric, which is Kevin B by Liberty, and came across it in the form of this dress, which is by an American company called Sailor Rose (link above), so of course I wanted the dress and not just the fabric. Looked at the price for the dress: $280! I'm sure it's very nice, but: 1. I just don't have $280 for a dress and 2. um...did I mention the price?!
Searched for a wrap dress pattern that was for wovens (most are for knits), and came up with:
Only thing is, to make the dress with the fuller skirt (although it is a bit too full for my liking anyway) would mean around 4m of Liberty lawn...too expensive. But with the straight skirt, even allowing extra fabric for mods to the ties (will explain) only approx. 1.8m is required. Yay!! So I'm going for view D but adding a collar to it. I don't usually go for straight skirts as, although I like the style, I find wearing them too restricting and uncomfortable. I'm thinking that in this case the skirt will have extra ease, due to the excess fabric in the wrap.
As for the ties, the pattern has the dress secured on the inside, with hidden ties (although there is the option of a separate belt), but I think it would be better to thread the innermost tie through a side opening and have the whole thing tie around the waist on the outside. If I don't have some definition in the waist I'll look like a sack.
So it looks as though I can recreate the Sailor Rose dress at a fraction of the cost though - trust me on this one - if I had the money I'd just buy it!! For now I'm making it up in the brown colourway of Liberty Strawberry Thief, but I have some Kevin B (otherwise known as "constellations") on the way. Whether I'll use it for another of these depends on how this one goes.
