Anna and the circle skirt - the dress that nearly wasn't

Good grief, this dress was a rollercoaster!  But a rollercoaster in a good way - it's hard to know where to start to tell the story.

 

 

I'll start with the pattern.  I had originally intended to make Butterick B5748, but I just couldn't get the fit right on the back.  It was lumpy, and saggy and just weird, no matter what I did to it.

I really loved the circle skirt, and hadn't made one before, so decided to use the good old By Hand London Anna bodice and the Butterick pattern's circle skirt.  Anna and a circle skirt are a match made in heaven, I've seen so many lovely versions of them.

I stupidly managed to chop my own hand off in this photo!

The fabric is the last of my red fabric, and also the last piece of cotton I have from The Paragon in Donegall Pass in Belfast.  I starting laying the fabric out, and it was at that point that I realised that I didn't like it.  I thought it was a bit too twee, even for me.  I procrastinated about what to do, but decided to crack on with it and use it as a practise piece for the circle skirt, and also a lapped zip.  I was happy enough to use the fabric for this, as it cost less than £15 for the whole dress.

 

So off I went, merrily sewing away.  I decided not to bother finishing the seams as I wasn't going to wear it.  The dress came together without a hitch.  The lapped zip worked beautifully first time, I used this tutorial from Lauren of Lladybird.

Once the zip was finished, I tried it on to see what it looked like, and it was gorgeous!  I couldn't believe it, you could have knocked me down with a feather!  The fabric seamed to have transformed itself into loveliness.  Then I could have kicked myself for not finishing the seams, so I took the pinking shears to them.

I hadn't bothered putting pockets in the side seams when I thought it was just for practise, so I made some patch pockets using my own how-to.   

 

Hemming was a breeze.  I let it hang for a day or two, but the bias didn't drop so I didn't have to trim anything off.  Then I used this tutorial from By Hand London - I went with version #1.

So there you have it, the Shocked and Surprised dress.  I like it so much I might wear it to a family wedding later this month!  

I'd love to know if anybody else has had something like this happen.

Have a great week,

Lynne