Hello there!
It’s Rosa here with a blog post for Sew Me Sunshine. I hope you are all keeping safe and well and have managed to find a little time for sewing during this period of social distancing. I'm finding that squeezing in something creative each day, even if just for twenty minutes, helps me to feel calmer at this difficult time, and I hope the same is true for you.
It feels like a lifetime ago that I was in Harriet’s lovely West London studio choosing the fabric for this blog post. I chose this lovely bright pink viscose as I can’t get enough of midi dresses at the moment, and the lovely simple print reminded me of the dresses I ogle in the windows of Oliver Bonas. When I chose the fabric the weather here in London was still very wintery and cold, but it has warmed up lots over the past few weeks and I have enjoyed getting some of my homemade summer dresses out of storage.
Before I start sewing, I always spend some time planning my makes and gather images on Pinterest. I actually enjoy this step as much as the sewing itself! Here are a few of my inspiration pics for this dress:
Images from: https://www.whowhatwear.co.uk/
Next it was time to choose a pattern, and I went for a pattern in my stash that I had not sewn before - Vogue 9328. I decided on view E and cut a UK size 10, but made a few alterations:
- I decided to add elastic to the bottom of the sleeves to give a nice puffed look
- I created a split to the knee on one of the front seams
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I omitted the back cut-out, as I knew I’d want to wear this dress to work and I didn’t feel it was appropriate
When I finished my dress, the bust was enormous on me! This is occasionally a problem for me as I am pear shaped, so I decided the best way to fix it was to create a large dart in the centre front, and take the excess fabric out of the front neckline facing. This also helped to raise the neckline, which was far too low. You can faintly see the dart from the outside of the dress here: 
Surprisingly, this weird alteration turned out fine and I’m really pleased with the finished dress. I wore it to work this week (I am a teacher) and found it was comfortable and cool enough to wear all day. I did wear a camisole underneath as the neckline is quite low, even after the alteration.
I hope you like how the dress turned out. As the bodice did not fit me very well, I probably won’t use this pattern again, but if you have a bigger bust than I do I can recommend this pattern as I really like how it came together overall.
Sew Me Sunshine have an amazing selection of high quality viscose fabrics like this one, if you would like to make your own floaty summer dress too.
Thank you for reading everyone, thank you to my wonderful friend Harriet and Sew Me Sunshine for the beautiful fabric, and thank you to my husband Josh for taking these photos for me in our back garden. Take care & stay safe xxx
