I bought 4.8 meters of Lecien's "My Folklore" quilting cotton on a whim a couple of weeks ago and I knew I had to make some kind of maxi dress with it. The fabric is a strange brownish eggplant with a blue and yellow flower motif and a really sweet looking border. I was also set on trying my hand at making a Gunne Sax-esque dress I've been drooling over at Etsy for the past couple of days.
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| Image from etsy.com |
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| Image from etsy.com |
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| Image from etsy.com |
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| Image from etsy.com |
The whole dress is self-drafted, but heavily based on the
Weisn Dirndl from Burdastyle. I love the princess armhole, the pleated looking skirt and the slightly puffed sleeves.
I made the princess armhole bodice from my basic sloper and added sleeves. I eliminated the button down at the front and put a zipper at the back. I embellished the front bodice with cotton lace, bias piping and bias tape before I sewed the pieces together. The bodice I drafted was a little too short, so I added a "belt" so the waistline would sit right at my waist instead of above it (I felt that a too-high waist made my own waist look bigger). I also pleated the skirt, rather than gather it.
And after about three days of sewing (about an hour a day, it was so hot in my sewing room), voila!
HIPPIEDOOM!
I love this dress, the skirt has great swish and I feel pretty wearing it. The bodice fits me perfectly and my waist looks smaller than usual. Wearing it reminds me of my younger days as a Goth (though I am still a Goth, I'm hardly what you would call "young") when I used to wear long skirts even in tropical weather. This is definitely a wear-again for me, but now that I'm older, I'll wait for cooler weather.
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| Lyra, all of nineteen years old in 1999. |
