Hey! Summer has arrived in Britain! Whoop! The news is filled with stories of 'temps hotter than Hawaii' (HA) and 'heatwave', all of which, farcical though they might be, do make a nice change from the news of political torment to which we've been subjected the past month. I personally tend to think it takes more than 2 days of 25+ weather in the middle of summer to warrant calls of a heatwave, but whatever - I'm enjoying it while I can! Naturally, such weather is a delight if you have lots of summery dresses you've made because finally, finally it's warm enough to wear them!
For some reason, last weekend, I decided that I simply HAD to make a maxi dress. I've never worn a maxi dress, because when you buy them at the shop and you're only 5"2, they tend to come with about a foot of extra fabric and that just made me mad. But loads of sewing bloggers rave about how cool and comfy maxi dresses are in summer, and I just fancied giving one a shot.
I didn't have any actual patterns for maxi dresses, and I had an idea in mind of what I wanted. Something loose-ish, lightweight and floaty - ideally made in viscose or a light crepe or some such. I had a bunch of lengths of suitable fabric so I was sure I'd be able to sew up something from my stash. I decided I'd modify the Washi dress for a maxi length, having seen a few versions around, and I spent a couple of hours tracing and spreading the pattern. Naturally after finishing that way too time-consuming process (at about 4pm on the Sunday), NONE of the fabrics I had were long enough or wide enough to fit. No matter how I pieced it, I could not get a damn maxi length Washi out of any of my fabric. I got in a bit of a huff about it all, if I'm entirely honest (I'll spare you the embarrassing tantrum-like details, but you can use your imagination). You know when you have an idea and you just get fixated on making it happen and then it won't?! So yeah. That happened. I was cross, and the dress was a fail before it got out of the gate.
Then on Monday or Tuesday (once the red mist had receded), I started pondering a bit more on this. Maybe a different pattern would work better anyway? I can't remember what made me think of it, but I thought that perhaps the April Rhodes Staple dress might make a good maxi version. It's a very loose tunic-y style dress that has shirring at the waist for shape. I bought that pattern ages ago, made a truly terrible toile, loathed it, and resigned the pattern to one of those 'good in theory, horrifying in practice' ones. You know what I mean, right?? But maybe, I thought, maybe in a maxi length, it would work? I was delighted to find I hadn't thrown out the pattern, and I didn't even bother lengthening the pattern pieces - just drew the lines out from the bottom on the fabric and chopped straight in! (brief moment of 'arrrgh' as I did so, because I was cutting into a long hoarded piece of lovely John Kaldor crepe - I have a Laurel made in this as well - there's a pic on my Me Made May post).
I'm SO glad I did this. I love this dress a lot. I feel just a tiny bit fabulous in it. Is that the power of maxi dress? You feel all swishy and cool and glam somehow (none of which I ever am on a normal basis!). It's a love thing!
So the dress has grown on kimono sleeves, pockets, a scoop neck and that's really all there is to say! I decided to put a couple of splits in the side seams for maximum summery ventilaton, and I used bought bias binding rather than the fabric 'facings' the pattern calls for (partly because I'm lazy, but more because I used every inch of fabric I had in the dress. I even had to make the pocket bags out of random scraps of blue and black crepe from my stash). It's a super quick sew, and a bloody fabulous result. I haven't seen many Staple dresses in a maxi length, but I reckon it works.
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| Told you I wasn't glamorous |
I wore the dress out to a friend's 40th birthday party (held in the gorgeous gardens of her parent's country house) on Saturday and it was comfy and glam and summery - everything I wanted it to be.
Don't you just love it when a random idea finally works out exactly as you'd hoped?! One of the best things about sewing!
Happy 'heatwave' lovely readers!
xox
