For a number of years this light, filmy, patterned and printed cotton, made in Italy, had been lurking in my “cottons basket.” I had purchased two yards of it from Mendel Goldberg Fabrics, for a “future” dress presumably.
At 60” wide, I knew two yards would be sufficient for just about any summer style I chose to make. It seemed like every Spring I would take it out and consider the possibilities for it, not reaching a decision. But this Spring, the “future” had finally arrived, at least for this fabric.
I’m not sure how I came up with the idea to trim it with a coordinating tape/ribbon, but I liked the definition it gave to the colors in the printed floral sprays. First, I thought purple would be a great color to pair with it, then I went to yellow, then to pink. None of those seemed to make the fabric pop the way I anticipated they would. So, even though red is not a dominant color in the print, I decided to try it. And that was it – it worked!
I had already decided on a Vogue pattern I had previously used twice, albeit with a number of obvious changes.
The first construction decision facing me was whether to underline it with cotton batiste and then also line it with – I wasn’t sure what; or just line it and hope that would be sufficient. I wanted to preserve the light, airy feel of the fabric, but I also needed to address the sheerness of part of the fabric.
After much thought and experimentation, I went with using only a simple cotton batiste lining. That turned out to be the right decision. I under-stitched around the inside of the neckline and armscyes even though I did not have an underlining upon which to secure those stitches. However, the under-stitching – which caught only the seam allowance – still had enough of a stabilizing effect to secure those edges.
A hand-picked zipper is always a lovely detail to add to a dress like this:
I’m getting ahead of myself here, but to make this dress, I was eking out small snippets of sewing time during a complicated Spring. And when the time came to do our annual Summer migration from Pennsylvania to Wyoming, 2200 driving miles west, the dress was unfinished.
So, I packed it up along with a lot of other sewing-related things, and I eventually picked up where I left off. I remembered to bring the zipper for the dress, – and the red Petersham ribbon for its embellishment – but I forgot to bring the extra dress fabric. Why was this a big deal, you might be asking? Well – I needed to make a belt for the dress, and my intention was to make a self-belt, edged with the red ribbon.
Once again in my sewing life, I found myself going to Plan B – necessary, if I had any thought of wearing this dress this summer. (Plan B stands for “It BETTER work.”) I hemmed and hawed and decided there were two options. One was a white belt and the other was a red belt. I came to the conclusion a red belt would be too overpowering for the delicate nature of the fabric. So that left me with a white belt, which wasn’t too exciting. Then I had a eureka moment when I realized I could pick up the somewhat zigzag overlay motif in the fabric and embellish the belt with my extra red Petersham ribbon, applied in a zigzag pattern.
So – I rather like the Plan B belt although I may decide at some point to make a self-belt as I had originally intended. We shall see. One thing I know I will do is make belt loops for this dress from its remaining fabric sleeping back in Pennsylvania.
In the meantime, this is a good dress for a hot American summer.
Ciao!
fiftydresses 