I'm here today to show you a dress I made last weekend. The last few things I've made myself haven't been blogged because they either haven't been finished (because I don't like them) or they turned out not as nice as I thought. I know in the interests of honesty I should blog the failures as well as the successes, but I can't be bothered. Sorry!
Anyway, this dress is one of those projects that turned out even better than I hoped it would, and I had pretty high hopes for it.
The pattern is the Closet Case Patterns Kalle dress, which I'm sure needs no introduction. I made a couple last summer, both in the half buttoned style. The first time I used the longest length option on the pattern but it was to short for me, so on the second outing I lengthened it by a couple of inches. I'm not tall, but I don't like to show my knees, and the first one fully exposed them.
Ever since then I've been wondering about making an even longer version and when I saw this fabric I knew I had to give it a try.
The fabric is supposedly a viscose crepe from Barry's Fabrics in Birmingham. I was in Birmingham a couple of weekends ago for a gig* and decided it would be rude to drive home on the Monday without visiting a couple of fabric shops. I went to Barry's and the Fancy Silk Store, walking across town from my hotel near the Jewellery quarter.
Anyway, as soon as I saw the fabric I thought "maxi dress" - it was only on the way home that I thought "long Kalle shirt dress" instead.
The alteration was easy. I basically took my already slightly lengthened pattern pieces and added another ten inches onto them, the rest is made exactly as the pattern. The fun part was trying to do the burrito yoke with the lengthened body pieces, it was a bit of a squeeze I can tell you, but it worked!
As you can see I've got it belted here, I wore it to a managers meeting during the week with a cropped black jacket. I forgot to photograph it without the belt, although I'll probably wear it like that when the weather warms up, and I think it could also be worn open over a pair of cropped trousers and a top.
I have to say, I love it. It's slightly shorter than I anticipated a dress from this fabric being, but I think it's the perfect length for the style, belted or loose. I've actually got some lovely fabric I bought at the Sewing Bee Live last year that I'm tempted to make into another exactly the same.
* The gig was Nick Hodgson (ex-drummer of Kaiser Chiefs) who has recently released his first solo album. It was an amazing evening, here is a video my friend took during the gig.
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