The Instagram Takeover Dress

The Simple Sew Bloggers team have had a ball during May, taking over the Simple Sew Instagram feed, for Me-Made May. My turn was on Sunday 13th, and I had already planned ahead what I was going to post, but then I changed my mind on the day absolutely on a whim! I’d introduced myself in my first post, wearing one of my Shannon Collection Dresses (this one). And it just reminded me what a lovely quick and easy make this dress is. So I dug out my pattern and started making another one.

I didn’t have many jerseys in my fabric stash, but I found a gorgeous pink/purple (I’m calling it Heliotrope) silk jersey that I bought last year from the world-famous Man Outside Sainsbury’s at Walthamstow market. It’s so dreamy!

I didn’t have quite enough width to get both pattern pieces fully on my 150cms of fabric, but I was able to fold both edges inwards to make two foldlines, and to trim the sleeve length a bit to make it work.

The silk was really slippery to work with, so I invested some time in hand tacking, to make sure the pieces wouldn’t shift when I tried to sew them on the machine.

I decided not to use the sleeve and neckline bands, because I wanted this dress to have clean lines, and not look too t-shirt-y. I neatened all the edges, and turned the hems under, with some blind hem stitching (by hand) to catch them invisibly (well as invisibly as possible).

And that’s where it could have ended, simple and plain… Buuuuut simple and plain isn’t quite my style. And I like to use my scraps somehow, so I decided that evening that I could use them to do some kind of self-appliqué work. I started on some puffed-up couching-style appliqué, to add some detail to the neckline, and that was my last Instagram post for that day. It has turned out to be rather slow going, but worth it, in my opinion. I think it’s a really pretty embellishment, that lifts the dress and makes it unique.

I’ve continued the couching to the sleeves and hemline. It gives the hem a bit of weight. It all took rather longer than I thought, but at last I’m finished, and I can share the final dress with you.