This is my inspiration photo

As I said in my previous post I started cutting out the top of another pattern before deciding this fabric was totally wrong

The first thing that I needed to do was to work out if I had enough fabric left over to make the skirt. I suspected, looking at the picture that was a 3/4 circle skirt, it didn’t look full enough to be a full circle, after spending 5 minutes looking for my skirt pattern, then looking at the instructions in the sewmanydresses book I decided that I couldn’t be bothered with creating a 3/4 circle pattern.

I folded my fabric in half and pinned it still, I took my water soluble pen attached it to a piece of string held it in one corner of the fabric and made two 1/4 circles on the folded fabric with the pen on the other end, then just cut 1/4 off each piece, which was handy because I used those bits for facings.

I decided that I could use the basic bodice from the sewmanydresses book, it did give instructions on how to make  a button down bodice, unfortunately I didn’t have the fabric to use the all-in-one method so had to cut a separate button tab.

I had a couple of problems due to the fact I had already cut out the bodice pieces for the other outfit and so would have to use these to create the top of my dress. The main problem was that the fabric wasn’t quite wide enough, using a 3/8 inch seam allowance on the front I managed to move my under arm problem into the seem allowance.

I did add an extra bit to this fabric before cutting out, I straight stitched then zigzagged an extra bit, the last place you need a weak stress point is under the arm.

there was also a tiny problem with the back of the neck but I decided to just make the back neckline lower.

If you look closely at the next picture you can just see where I am going to cut the neckline to. There is a faint blue line on the left side of the photo.

I am quite pleased with it so far, I have decided on 22mm white buttons, which I need to get and I think I am going to try bias binding on the hem and armholes.

More soon…..