Completed: Colette Peony – Summer Gingham!

Ok, it’s not summer here, but it sure feels like it – right after I took these pictures yesterday, I pulled on a short-sleeved tshirt & some denim capris and took my bicycle out for a spin. It was LOVELY outside – and today doesn’t look like it’ll be any different. Yay for spring getting a head start this year 😀

Anyway, here’s a little summer sundress to get us in the mood – sorry if you live in a cold climate, maybe you should move to the South 🙂 Ha! I kid, I kid! I can’t wait to wear this dress as God intended – no tights, no cardigan, just some espadrilles and a sweet little rose brooch. I have a feeling this dress will be in heavy rotation for the next few months!

There’s not much to say about this pattern – I’ve already made it twice, so I didn’t have to do any preliminary fitting or a muslin – just cut & go! I did putter around with the pattern, since I had a pretty limited amount of fabric – 1.5 yards of 44″ gingham is exactly enough to cut out this pattern with no sleeves or facings (but still keeping the pockets) in a size 4, FYI. I underlined the entire dress – bodice & skirt – with white cotton batiste to keep everything modest, since my gingham was pretty sheer! Since I didn’t have enough fabric to cut facings, I faced the neck & arms with white bias binding for a clean finish. I did consider lining the dress (as opposed to underlining) so I wouldn’t have to deal with facings at all, but I wanted my batiste to offer a little structure in addition to making things opaque, so I stuck with underlining. As a bonus, it brightened up the colors, too! I also scooped a little out of the neckline so it wasn’t quite so boat-neck, per my inspiration.

I decided to keep the overall look of this dress simple & clean – with pops of yellow to make everything less Dorothy-esque 🙂 The yellow belt is a leftover from my first rooibos (man, I miss wearing that dress! GET WARM OUTSIDE!), and the yellow crocheted rose pin is something I made a couple of years ago when I had this crazy idea I was going to crochet a white granny square afghan with yellow roses. Actually, I still want that afghan, but I have too many projects to finish & I hate crocheting anyway 🙂 Here is the video I used to make the rose, it’s really easy! I still have a pile of these roses that I need to do something with – maybe I’ll give them away. Dunno!

My sewing room is so tiny, but I just love standing in there & gawking, so I thought y’all might like it too!

I cut the pockets out of gingham as well, so they blend in with the sides of the dress 🙂

Oops, I almost forgot – here is a shot of it without the belt! The checks match up pretty well, if I do say so myself 🙂

This is the best close-up I could get – every single other one of my pictures turned out super dark 😦

It cracks me up how my dresses look post-FBA when they are hanging or flat – they have little built-in boobs! HAHA!

You may have noticed that the zipper is bright yellow. I did not have a white 22″ zipper on hand, but I did have yellow! And it goes with my overall theme – not to mention that pretty burst of color when it’s unzipped! I love colorful little surprises like that 🙂

I just wanted to share my check-matching at the zipper. That’s as close to perfect as I could get! I know the checks don’t line up at the waistband – it’s due to the back darts. The fronts & side seams match up, though – you can’t win ’em all!

Yellow lace on the inside of the hem 🙂

The flea market was kind of mehhh this weekened, but I did score at the thrift – look at this beauty I picked up~

100% silk, in the most gorgeous shade of teal – $2! It’s a skirt, but it’s fairly large & long, and the seams are very simple. Cutting it apart yielded about 1 3/8 yard of 36″ fabric – plus the silk lining & zipper. Also, I bought a cashmere cardigan (not pictured) for $4. YUS THRIFT.

YEP.

Tags: completed, crochet, dress, peony