The Cherry Gingham Dress

Some of you will be thinking 'its about time she got around to this one' and I agree - it is!  I decided the weekend before last that I'd really like to do something for myself and this one was just begging to be made.

I measured the bust and the waist on the paper pattern and it looked like it would fit so I set about cutting out the pattern pieces.  I'm making view 2 on the right with the exposed buttons, but of course I'm making changes!

Because of the way I like my clothes fitted (ie tight), buttons tend to look strained, so instead of using the button front, I'm putting a zipper in the left side seam and sewing up the fronts so it looks like the buttons are functional, but aren't.  Its a win win!

One thing I was super happy about was that this pattern has NO DARTS!  Instead, there are gathers at the waist and the shoulders.  Oh, and there are bound button holes, which of course I chose to do in gingham.

These are the ones on the skirt - more on that later - and I was super happy to find perfectly matched buttons in dark red.  Not in my stash unfortunately, in the shop.  Why is it that there are never the buttons I want in my stash???

Anyway!

The bodice went together easily, even though it seemed to take a long time.  I think that's because I hadn't sewn this one before, and gathers take longer than darts, and bound button holes take a while too...

I really like the detail of the gathers at the shoulder, or maybe its the fabric combination that really makes it stand out, but I think it looks great!

Strangely, while there are facings for the fronts, there is no facings for the rest of the neckline.  So I grabbed a scrap of gingham and made a length of bias to finish it off.  Then I got an idea...

I cut lots more bias strips, and when the dress is together I'll use my Christmas present from last year (which I haven't used before) to make bias to finish the skirt hem!

But back to the construction.

Putting the skirt together was challenging.  Not because it was hard, but because I clearly wasn't thinking.  First step was making the bound button holes - which I made on THE WRONG SIDE of the fabric, so the back of the button hole was on the front of the skirt.  Sigh!  So I chucked that piece in the fabric pile and cut another.

Second time around I paid attention long enough to get the button holes in the right way, but stopped concentrating and put them in the left front, not the right front.  Of course I didn't notice this until I had the entire front of the skirt made.  I held it up against the bodice and noticed it went right over left, and the skirt went left over right.  SIGH!!!

Thankfully I had enough fabric to cut both fronts out AGAIN, but that was it - no more fabric, so no more  mistakes!  (I just want to point out that I've never made this many mistakes on the one thing!  This is so unusual for me!!)  So I put my super-concentration head on and paid attention and got it right.  So it really is true - THIRD TIME LUCKY!!!

I put the rest of the skirt together and attached it to the bodice.

Oh, and there is a pocket on the right hand side - in gingham of course!

But that is where I stopped.  I need to put in the zipper, sew up the front, attach the buttons, and hem the skirt and the sleeves with gingham bias (that I'm yet to make).  And the reason that I stopped is that I got super excited about an idea to make a dress for a wedding I attended last Friday evening.  If you've been following my Facebook page, you'll know exactly what it looks like.  For the rest of you, you'll find out later this week.

I hope you had a lovely weekend.

Beccie
xxx