Oh no, she didn't...

Yes she did!

If you are hosting a New Year's Eve party for some friends, it's probably not a good idea to decide you want a new dress for it on short notice. Certainly not if you're going to make it from scratch and don't have time to start on that until the afternoon of 31 December.

Which is just what I did. There were redeeming factors though: this is an extremely simple dress, drafted from my knit sloper and I had all the materials in my stash and by the time I could start on it, all the party preparations where done and E was going to cook dinner that evening (and he made a great chocolate cake, yum).

The fabric for this dress is a textured stretch lace (which is unfortunately very hard to photograph) which had been in my stash for years. There was only 1 meter at 1,10 m wide, so it could only just become a dress. I had wanted three quarter length sleeves but, with the fabric available, it was either cap sleeves or an all-in-one facing. Under the lace, I used a cream coloured, silky knit lining. I treated it as underlining both to speed up the construction and to avoid very visible black lines at the sides an darts for the seams in the lace and to keep issues with the different behavioural characteristics of these two fabrics under control.

The shape is extremely simple. It has a bit of a boat neck, is fairly fitted down to the bustline and from there to the hem, the sides and straight and only flare out a little bit to allow a bit of ease at the hips. The end result, as to be expected, is a bit '60's.

I wore the dress for the party and I did get some compliments on it, and a few gasps of disbelief when I mentioned I had made it that very afternoon...