The Sweet Pea Dress

I finally finished a dress I had meant to wear for Midsummer’s Eve, a little more than a month ago, but it fought me almost every step of the way. 

The fabric is from second hand duvet covers with a pattern of sweet peas. I tea stained them as I wanted a more cream/very pale yellow hue. The bodice came together well enough (though there are things I’d change), and I’d stitched the skirt (including pockets), all ready for assembly, when trouble became apparent. 

I had taken the dress outside to work on it in the garden, and in the clear light I saw that the skirt panels were different in shade, one much paler than the others. Gah! Fortunately, the bodice was all in one shade. How to save this? I didn’t have fabric enough for new skirt panels. I put the dress aside for a couple of hours and mulled it over until a solution presented itself. 

Instead of a skirt cut in one from waist to hem, as I usually do, I’d make it in two tiers. The top one would be the same hue as the bodice, and the lower tier in the other shade, hoping that the gathers would disguise the difference enough to make the dress wearable. It took some piecing to get the fullness I wanted, but though not perfect, it’s possible to wear without looking too silly.

So I stitched bodice and skirt together, happy to be almost finished, thought long overdue. Bot no – the bodice was too long in the back, and buckled. How annoying. Rip apart, shorten the bodice, stitch back together. And done, finally.

The bodice closes in front with hooks and eyes, the skirt has a dogleg closure. Neckline, armscyes and waistline are piped. The bodice is interlined with white cotton, lined with Vichy checked cotton, and boned. I couldn’t help but embroider a maker’s tag. 

There is a deep pocket in each side, naturally, and the skirt hem is faced with a strip of solid cotton, left over from one of the kids’ Jedi tunics.

I had planned to make a blouse in the same fabric – worn together, it would look like one garment, but I very much doubt I have enough scraps to make it. Boo. Still, all in all, despite the imperfections, I like how the dress turned out, and it’s nice to have a new one for Sunday best – and before the summer is over too!