Fools and Fabric

What's in a title?  Not what you'd think for this blog post as the Fools and the Fabric are really a bit of alliteration aside to the main matter.

Really it's about a home made dress but let's start at the beginning when I purchased some green hawaiian type lycra print from Birmingham Rag Market.  The fabric lay - unloved - in my stash for over a year - I wasn't even sure about the colours.  Then I found the ideal pattern in my other stash - the Burda Magazines. Pattern number 109 from Burda February 2013 was the ideal vehicle -  finally,  the perfect meeting of pattern and fabric.

It's not always so easy to find a good pattern for lycra fabric, specially when you want something glam.  However this pattern seemed ideal with it's gathered shoulder detail.   The pattern itself is unusual in that there is no shoulder seam the should piece is an extension of the back.  The original pattern had only one gathered shoulder but I hacked it to give both shoulders gathering as I felt this gave the garment a more vintage feel and suited my personal style.  ... and I do love a bit of hacking:

Here's the back view to show how the back of the dress continues on to the shoulder:

Now to the fools bit -

Fools because the dress got its first wearing on a night out to an "Only Fools and Three Courses" dinner.  Do you think the dress has a good background against the Trotter's van? Mr P being a bone fide Fools and Horses fan we couldn't miss out on this evening and as it meant no cooking for me I was double happy.

I even got to meet Del Boy after the show, complete with dodgy wares!

Enough silliness.  Now to the Fabric part of the post.  I decided to wear the dress for my annual material shopping spree in Athens. I feel if I wear a me made it serves as a good luck charm for finding lots of nice fabric.  I'm pleased to say it worked.  You can make out three of the shops in the background  there's about another nine in the area - fabric heaven.

The dress was actually pretty easy to make - if you want to give it a go it's from Burda February 2013, number 109.  The basic dress contains only three pieces - a front and two backs, but mine contained six as I lined it with itself.  I added in some gathers at the bust and to give it a vintage sweetheart neckline.

The basics:-

Ease of sewing - as it only has three pieces it was easy to sew but take care if you use lycra - it's a slippery character.

Requirements - 1.5m of fabric - you'll need a stretch fabric for this one.  I had the fabric so long I can't remember how much I paid for it!!

Happy Sewing and Happy Holiday Time

Linda x