Yeah, it rhymes 🙂

Maybe some of you remember. Last autumn Rochelle and Tasha hosted a Fall-for-Cotton-Sew Along. It is already march now, but maybe some of you still remember.
In fact, I managed to finish the dress in time (deadline was september 30th), maybe you saw my final result in the Flickr-group or Rochelle’s final slideshow.
But though I finished the dress, what I didn’t finish was the matching bolero. Days before the deadline I headed to a conference meeting in Lyon, flying from France directly to London for a job interview, came back to Bern after one week only to work the next day, on whose’s evening my dad arrived to help us with moving from our old flat to the one we have been living in for a couple of months now.
As you can imagine, I didn’t have much time to sew at all and with the temperature dropping my motivation to finish a summer’s dress wasn’t as high as it should have been.

But the bolero didn’t need that much work anymore and so one afternoon in winter I was destined to finally finish it, only to realize that I had no idea where I had put the last piece to be attached to the bolero’s hem. It took me some more weeks to find it and so I finally made it without any further catastrophes.
That all happened back in january and now, only a very short time afterwards (cough, attention, sarcasm) I managed to photograph the result.

I already showed you the fabrics I used, a comparably stiff purple cotton and an old duvet cover printed with purple and brown roses. To line the bodice I used a white cotton batiste.

It ws one of the rare occasions where I worked with a pattern that had the seam allowances included, but it worked surprisingly well. I changed literally nothing (partly because I rarely do and often realize too late, what should have been changed, but mostly because I have difficulties to imagine the outcome of cutparts with the seam allowance included. I know, many draw the actual seam line themselves, but that means to double the work at my most loathed step in sewing, transfering the pattern to the fabric, no option for me 😉 ).

I have to admit, the fit is not as perfect as could be and I have to pay attention which bra I wear, because the bodice is a little too large around the bust, but nothing that can’t be fixed with a good push-up. 😀

The skirt consists of four parts that add up to a wide, but not a full circle skirt.
First I planned to shorten it considerably to end just below the knees, but then I loved the idea of having a real tea-length-dress. And knowing I will only wear it with heels, I don’t need to fear to look too short. In the photos I am wearing a small petticoat underneath.

The belt is not attached to the dress. I don’t like the untidy look of it and though I do like the idea of avoiding a too cute bow, to me it looks as if I ran out of fabric. Maybe I will arrange the knot and sew it close, adding a press fastener or hooks and eyes closing to the back (more likely: I will leave it like this and will complain about it as long as I own the dress).

Now I only have to wait until next summer, but with the temperature rising outside I am positive that it won’t be too long. Today it was at least not too cold to wear it, though I was happy to stand in the sun.

But honestly it was much too bright. I had the choice between standing in the shadow or being blinded by sunlight. All the photos needed massive photoshopping because on most of them the skirt seemed almost white. And you can clearly see that it was too bright, looking at my >.<-face.

PS: Needless to say I was unable to decide what shoes to wear and therefore chose both 😉

see you soon,

love, ette