Hello all!

I made this dress all the way back in May out of a beautiful striped linen that I bought on holiday in New York last year. This was very high-stakes fabric and I really really wanted to make something out of it that I would love and wear for a very long time, which I think I’ve just about managed to do!

I’ve been wanting to make my own version of a dress that Chriselle wore in 2016 and I thought that this stripy linen would pair perfectly with the sleek design to create the perfect simple and sophisticated summer dress. I adapted my bodice block and added my skirt block as it was, just extending the length to mid calf. The bodice of my curtain dress is actually an updated version of this pattern. The longest part of the process was the cutting out! I wanted to make sure that the stripes matched up at the waist seam and at the side seams of the skirt.

My big mistake during the cutting out process was that I cut both the skirt front and back pieces on the fold, meaning that the zip would have to be in the side seam. This was an issue because my bodice goes past the side seam, in an effort to control gaping and to limit any boob exposure. To counter this I attached the bodice to the skirt up until the zip, and then an inch or so of the bodice is left free, which poppers to the skirt.

It’s strange how my scrubs sewing affected my personal sewing because I used the exact same method for my side slits! I made the hem quite deep to add weight to it so that it would hang more nicely. The bodice is finished with a facing (I used a scrap of white linen) and everything else was overlocked. There are 6 darts in total on the bodice, and I’m so pleased with how invisible they are!

It took a bit of fitting to get the bodice to be wearable, and it could do with a tad more now really. I lowered the neckline 3cm, took 6cm total from the neckline width using a 2 darts and took 10cm from the side seams of the skirt to make it slightly more fitted. I think the neckline could definitely do with more being taken out of it, and the side of the bodice is still gapier than I would like. I tried to combat the side gaping by adding siilicone backed elastic to each side of the bodice but I think I need to stretch it slightly more for it to work.

All in all, I love this dress. It really is the perfect holiday dress and I am so excited to eventually wear it in the sun and by the sea at some exotic location. When I finished the dress I was slightly concerned about giving off a Joseph in the nativity wearing his mum’s tea towel vibe, but I think I’ve just about managed to escape it! I’d love to make a more glamorous silk version in the future.

Thanks so much for reading!

Lauren xx