Peach dress

The skirt is made from vintage fabrics and lace. The larger pieces of fabric in the skirt are square shapes, with one corner rounded off in a similar way that circular skirts are cut. Putting many pieces together like this makes the skirt very full and swirly.

The bodice is made using fabric cut from another skirt I shortened.

Bodice

Front and back has hand made fabric roses from from vintage fabrics, trimmed with ribbon, lace and vintage braid.

Dress back

The peach fabric used in the photo above are the leftover pieces from the skirt I shortened here.

It’s turned out very differently from my original idea but still very pretty all the same. Can you guess what it is?

I started off with a strip cut from the under dress to form the base. This layer of the dress was cut on the bias, so my strip is now bias cut without any effort. This will help it sit nicely around her shoulders.

I also cut two narrow extra strips for the straps.

The edges are sewn together down the long edge leaving a small gap for turning in the middle, then the seam is pressed open lying in the centre of the strip.

The straps are tucked in and the ends stitched,

and then the whole thing is turned right side out, ta da!

I cut two strips of lace net from the lace over dress like this.

And then joined them up and gathered them.

Then I did the same with a strip of tulle in a contrasting lime green colour. The gathered strips were layered, pinned on and sewn down the middle of the base.

Next I made some flowers from the remaining lace net and some wine coloured tricot knit (petticoat fabric).

And sewed them on so it looks like this.

This is how it will be worn on the body, but on a much smaller person.

It took me all school holidays (two weeks) just to make the roses and sew them on! Now that the kids are back at school and kindy I’ll have to buckle down and get some real sewing done.