An unintentional dress for a wedding (Vogue V8469)

A few weeks ago I was looking through my projects, feeling a little disenchanted with Laar (yes, it's still plodding on in the background - I bought a miniscule 20cm Addi circular needle to do the arms as I'm so fed up with ladder sleeves, but its takes ages because I'm having to hold the needles a little awkwardly as they are so bloomin' small!) when I came upon a John Lewis bag which contained some beautiful, springtime fabric and a dress pattern which I'd bought when I'd just discovered I was pregnant with Laurie, who is now one, FYI. The pattern is Very Easy Vogue V8469, and originally I had intended to make the midriff and bow out of a harmonising but slightly differently patterned fabric, but when I looked again, I decided the harmonising fabric wasn't quite right. I remember now trying to choose it whilst in John Lewis with my MIL and Noah, and having to make up my mind pretty quickly (because of the latter, not the former!).

Anyway, on a whim, I decided to give it a go on a Monday evening. Monday evening became Tuesday evening, and eventually all the weekday evenings culminated in Friday evening, on which I stayed up all hours trying to get it finished to wear for a wedding the following day. This hadn't been my intention at all; I had just wanted a distraction from my knitting, and something completely different to concentrate on, but the more I sewed, and the more progress I saw, the more the little voice at the back of my head said, "Hey, if you work really hard and stay up late every night this week, you could wear this on Saturday!" So I became rather addicted, which has led to some exciting things subsequently, but more on that another time.

So here is the dress. The fabric is Gypsy Caravan by Amy Butler, which is a beautiful, fresh collection of gorgeous, coordinating prints, which was released, I believe, in Spring 2012.

 

I used an orange zip rather than green, to pick out the centres of the flowers, and I love how that turned out. It just makes it a little bit more interesting, especially since I changed my mind about using two fabrics.

All in all, I loved sewing this dress, and its inspired me to do much more dressmaking. I think dressmaking is in a class all of its own, rather than being classified as "general sewing", which I've done a reasonable amount of. Watch this space for more dresses and other lovely garments :)

xxx Sam