Seriously, it’s been a HOT summer. No rainfall the whole month of July, not a shower or drizzle. The temperatures are supposed to get up to 33 C (91.4 F) this week! It’s a good thing I took the opportunity to run outside today and take my blog photos – I think I will be hiding inside with the fan or an air conditioner the rest of the week!
Let me tell you about my “Tower Dress”. I love that name. I’ve named my dress after one of my favourite prints – called a “Tower” print, 92% polyester, 8% spandex. I love how the odd white leaf POPS out at you.
For my Tower Dress I used this McCall’s pattern, M6503, view B. It has fold back facings for a collar and a wrap bodice. I can’t wait to try some of the other bodice versions. The only pattern changes I made were to omit the side zipper (mine’s made from a knit fabric), lower the waistband about an inch (I’m not fond of high waisted garments), sew shut the wrap bodice (I find them to be a bother), and add piping (my new fetish!). I think this type of dress is available from lots of pattern makers, including the Indie pattern producers.
Cutting out my traced pieces almost ended in a few choice @#$& words. Luckily I only cut out one piece before stopping to check whether the flowers would be running in the same direction on all pieces. So I only had to re-cut one piece and I had lots of fabric left to do it. I had purchased enough for a full dress and a top.
I stabilized the seams of this knit fabric with seam tape.
I also stabilized the hem of the skirt with iron on interfacing, serged the edge, turned it up an inch and hemmed it with my sewing machine. The skirt is quite full and the hem way-down-there so I didn’t mind using my sewing machine to sew it up.
Here’s a close-up of my collar choice (can you tell I sewed shut the wrap bodice?) and my piping (love piping) on the collar edge and sleeve hems. I attached thin shoulder pads too. This fabric is so soft and comfortable I wanted to add a bit of shape to the shoulders. The thin shoulder pads did the trick! Look there are a few white leaves POPPING out at you! This is probably the most true to colour photograph in this lot. The background has a shade of pink to it that is difficult to catch.
Put your shades on now! It’s time to go outside!
Even with my “cutting mistake” I managed to salvage enough of this lovely fabric to make a top – as I had originally planned. I hope to be able to share it with you next week, so, in the meantime …
Happy Sewing!