Saturday 28 May 2016

Way, hey, it's Washi Day

Surprise! I made another Washi dress! And I have to tell you - I seriously LOVE this dress! Lots and lots of love.



It's made in a utterly delicious bamboo viscose fabric I bought yonks ago from Fabric Godmother. It looks black in these pics, but you'll have to believe me when I tell you that it's actually an incredibly dark navy. Navy is right in my comfort zone of course, but I quite like the colour ambiguity here - I could probably get away with some black tights and boots in winter. (update: I just checked my old order email confirmation and it's black. Which is rather a pain as I've totally sewn it up in dark navy thread!! Oops. Oh well. I won't tell if you won't).

So the fabric has lurked in my stash for ages, because I seem to find it impossibly hard to use my favourite fabric! How ridiculous is that? I'm working on getting over this stupidity. I had in mind to make this into a BHL Anna maxi dress but I didn't have enough for that. I did, however, have enough for a Washi! Win!

You'd think viscose might be too soft and drapey for a pattern designed to be made with quilting-weight cotton, but I really like how this has worked out. It feels...fluid? Does that make sense when talking about clothes? It just feels incredibly floaty and quite dressy actually. But being a Washi dress (and having no fastening - hurrah for shirring elastic on the back!) it's also super comfortable. Like pjs. For the day-time.

If I'm honest, it has come up just a teensy bit shorter than I'd normally feel comfortable with, but I don't think it's indecent? Plus it's (theoretically - I live in Britain) going to be summer time soon, so I can be forgiven for showing a bit more leg.



I've decided that the pockets sit better if you cut them separately and attach them, rather than cutting them out as part of the skirt pieces. That was why my last one was 'poofy' in the pocket-area. The pattern gives you the option for both, so this will be my preference from now on. Otherwise, everything was made up the same, except I remembered this time to use a wider seam allowance on the side seams - it's meant to be 1/2in and I used 5/8. It just brings it in a bit tighter around the middle which I prefer for the shape. I whipped this up so quickly. It was pretty much done by lunch-time, bar the sleeves and hemming. And my hand-stitching must be getting faster because it only took me one episode of Grey's to invisible-stitch the binding under the arms/sleeves!

Oh, and how cute are my new shoes?? I bought 2 pairs this week (I'm calling these my 'compensation sandals' - my partner accidentally THREW OUT a pair of my boots a few weeks' ago, and he promised to replace them. I figured he could buy me some sandals for now and I'll deal with the boot loss later). These are faux clogs (ie. not actual wood because I can't be doing with soles that have no flex) and they're so comfortable! Like little cushions on my hooves. This whole outfit might be the most comfortable thing I've ever worn!

By the way, do you love my new conservatory tiles as much as I do?! So pleased. 

2 comments:

  1. Love the dress :-)

    He threw out your boots?! I think the sandals are the least you deserve, lol!

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    1. I KNOW! It was an accident (he was "helpfully" clearing out the clothes in my car that I'd been meaning to take to the clothing recycling bins, and my boots got accidentally caught up in the mix), but I was pretty mad!! The sandals are cute enough to make up for it a little bit ;-)

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