Self Drafted Linen Forest Dress

Hello Beautiful! How are you? Today is one of those days in the year I truly hate. Yes. I hate 1st of April. I hate getting pranked and today is the day when you can never be sure if someone is messing with you or being honest, so I am doubting everything anyone says and act paranoid towards everything. So to take my mind off this horrible day, I decided to share this lovely dress with you guys.

Ghost dust!

It is a self drafted simple dress made of a crisp forest green linen and lined with a viscose lining. The customer I made the dress for lives in London, so she sent me the fabric and her measurements via mail. And that made me nervous. I had this little voice in my head that kept saying "What if the measurements are off". In that case if the garment didn't fit, it wouldn't be my fault, but still. If you put hours of your time into a piece of clothing, you want it to fit. Luckily the fit was right and all my fear was unjustified. Phew.

The pattern itself was a really basic dress block with a seamline in the waist. The customer was very adamant about having a seam in the waistline, topstitching on both sides of the seam and having horizontal pockets with flaps on the skirt. Her wish was my command. However the topstitching thread is so tone-to-tone with the main fabric that it gets lost in the fabric,haha. It is what it is.

The lining is attached to a facing in the neckline which in turn is understitched to avoid it peeking out while being worn. I secured the facing to the shoulder seams by a few stitches by hand to make it more secure.

The dress fastens with an invisible zipper on the left side. To make sure that the lining doesn't get stuck in the zipper and to fasten it to the zipper seam allowance, I stitched it by hand using catch stitching.

All the seams are finished with a serger to avoid any risk of the seam allowances starting to unravel. I like to do this with all dresses that have a lining. Even though the lining should reduce the raveling, dresses tend to be worn and washed more and this way their lifespan will be longer. With blazers it's not an issue because there's all sorts of interfacings and they aren't subjected to as much wear and washing as dresses are.

The hem of the main fabric is also stitched by hand. I prefer hemming my invisible hems by hand even though I have that fancy-schmancy invisible hem foot, I just find that even if it is set up perfectly, it does not look as neat and truly invisible compared to careful hand stitching. The hem of the lining is finished by a wide rolled hem. And to avoid the lining climbing up while wearing, I braided a 4cm long thread "bridge"(as I like to call it) between the lining and main fabric hems.

For someone who had a deep disdain towards linen 1.5years ago, I have come a long way. I actually really liked working on this dress. And it's going to be a great addition to the customer's spring/summer wardrobe.

Have you already gotten started working on your spring/summer wardrobe? What's on your sewing list for the new season?