I bought some fab Shaheen tiki print quilting cotton from equilter last year. When it arrived it was sopping wet in the package, in an Australia Post plastic bag which said that is how they received it. It was like it had been at the bottom of the sea! Equilter were great about it when I notified them, and told me to give it a wash and see if I wanted to keep it, and if not they would refund me. It washed up fine, so I kept it and made it into my New Year's eve frock.
I used bodice D of New Look 6699, but rounded off the neckline a little, to make it a bit more like a vintage sarong dress. I only had 2 yards of this fabric, and equilter had no more, so I couldn't do a proper wrap skirt. Instead I attached the skirt from Butterick 5672, cut on the bias (as the pattern instructs you to do, which I don't really understand as it is designed for stretchy knits.) I cut on the bias because I was using a woven of course and thought it would give me some more wiggle room (haha!)
This means the striped motif is angled on the skirt, but I don't mind that, it makes it look more 'sarongy' to me. The side pleats on the skirt give it a bit of a wrap vibe.
Next I frankensteined Butterick 5672 again. I'm getting my money's worth out of this pattern! This time I used the bodice, but extended the shoulders for a more vintage look. I attached skirt D from New Look 6911, but decreased the pleats on the front from 6 to 4 (total) and left off the waistband.
The fabric is a linen/cotton blend I got at Spotlight. It's extremely red as you can see. Nice and cool and the skirt twirls nicely. I didn't line the frock, instead I used bias binding as facings. It's not especially sheer fabric, and I wanted to keep the lovely lightness and coolness of the fabric for summer wearing.
This frock was an experiment for the next fabric I had in the queue, but I ended up going with a different pattern for that in the end. I've finished that next frock now, and will show it in my next post. Now I have to get out of the sewing room and go somewhere to wear all these frocks!
2 comments:
You are the queen of frankenpatterns! I love them both but the first one has a real 50's retro vibe to it. I just saw a bad 50's comedy film set on a Pacific island in WWII and the beautiful native love interest wore dresses that were not unlike this one. I am about to frankenpattern a BWOF blouse onto the bottom half of a Vogue dress and will think of your successes as I sew!
Mmm loving both of these. I like the use of the side pleaty skirt on the sarong one, inspired!
Post a Comment