I finally decided to have a shot at doing something with lace – I bought a piece from reverse garbage, a place in Brisbane that sells odds and ends from all sorts of places with the hope of people finding a use for others’ junk. Anyway, I assume this fabric was a lace curtain in a past life, and I got a couple of metres for $6. Yay! Bargain!
I previously got going on Cambie dress, and despite making a muslin, had some neckline gaping issues. My attempt to fix them post-hoc made things ten times worse, and as a result it’s on the mending pile. Hopefully I’ll get the energy to do something about it, because I *love* the pattern, and it’s in a really pretty cotton.
Anyway, this dress is a bit improvised, but the bodice started out as the Cambie bodice pattern. I made the neckline straight (as per Tasia’s tutorial here), and totally removed the top of the back, so it’s just straight across:
oops. The back hem isn’t as wonky as this photo suggests. I just think it was unironed… (typical)
The bodice has 3 layers: the lace layer, the underlining, and then a lining. You know when you’ve read about a technique and you get really excited when you get to put that knowledge in to action? That’s how I feel about the underlining for this dress. I started with just the lace pieces:
and then pinned them to the underlining (identical pattern pieces, in cotton):
… and sewed them together, so I can treat them as one pattern piece.
I haven’t used underlining for anything before, but I’m planning to use it for a linen dress to limit wrinkling.
For the skirt, I didn’t use an underlining, so there’s just two layers. I wanted the top (lace) layer to hang free of the cotton lining underneath, so I just sewed them separately. Originally, I had the skirt gathered at the waist…
… but I wasn’t totally sold, so I tore it all to pieces and hacked a bunch of fabric off the outside edge. Now it’s like an a-line with some subtle gathers. Voila!
Because I cut this before fixing my previous neckline fitting issue (I know, I know), I had to insert some extra darts that come in just to the side of the straps, but I’m really happy with how it turned out. SUPER cute… agreed?
I’m a little careful to wear it with casual/colourful accessories to downplay a possible wedding-dress look, I think I’m being successful so far.
me and you make and do 