Another dress!

One of the pictures I promised yesterday: my new dress. I told you I'm on a bit of a spree... I stuck with the retro-thing as well.

This dress is made from fairly thin and drapey cotton satin with a huge grey-on-black paisley print. The pattern is very simple, I thought that would suit the big print. It has cut-on cap sleeves (the simplest sleeve option ever), a cowl neckline (see this page at vintagesewing for drafting instructions) and a plain circle skirt. I went with a zipper at center back because that allowed me to cut the back of the skirt in two pieces. That was necessary because I had only 2 meters of this fabric, and I just had to have a circle skirt. That and it made putting in pockets a lot easier.

It's a light and airy dress which will be good in the warm days to come and to be honest, I never expected it to top my previous dress-making effort. There is one thing which bugs me slightly about it: the skirt stretches on the bias. It shows at the hem. I know you are supposed to let circle skirts hang out for a day, preferably on a dummy, and then mark the hem with one of those chalk spewing marking-thing-y's... But I was impatient, my second hand dummy is stuck at its lowest setting, I don't have a marking-thing and most other common tricks for marking hems on you own wouldn't work on so big a skirt.

In my other circle skirted dresses, I have always cut the skirt in 6 pieces to save fabric. Now, I think the extra seams may have helped to keep the stretching under control. And of course, this effect is different in each fabric.