If my first pair of Sew Dolly Clackett dresses were a bright and breezy floral tribute to romance and family, then this dress is the cynical cousin who just can’t seem to find love. If the thought of a stream of June weddings without a steady plus-one to bring along has you repeatedly looking at your cat and shaking your head in disgust, this is the dress for you.
I’ve had this quilting cotton in my stash for a few years, just waiting to make up a fluffy dress. It’s one of the most unique prints I’ve ever seen.
As you can see, this print is both directional and geometric so the finished garment needed to be designed to accommodate accordingly. I didn’t want to break up the print too much, so I used the By Hand London Anna dress bodice (once again). I used three widths of fabric for the skirt and pleated it along the print lines, then trimming off the excess at the back, about 4 inches on each side so it would fit the bodice at the waistline. I figured that if I really was using newsprint rather than fabric I would pleat instead of gathering. I tried large box pleats first, but didn’t like them. Modern vintage-look dresses seem to avoid the asymmetry of having the pleats go all the same direction, so pleating it the way I did seems a little extra retro to me.
It twirls so nicely.
I don’t have a lot to say about dress construction, since it’s so similar to my other Sew Dolly Clackett dress, so I’ll share a story instead. A few years ago I was working for a small local nursing home. We needed to add a nurse to the staff, so a help-wanted ad was put in the newspaper. This was before the recession hit; there weren’t any applicants. I wasn’t in charge of putting the ads in, but the person who was in charge talked it over with a few of us. We brainstormed which led to all kinds of silliness. It was decided that a help wanted ad that read like a used car ad wouldn’t be a good idea. What nurse wants to respond to something that says: “looking for used nurse, high mileage okay, must be extra clean.” A personal ad, though, has potential. You can imagine the look on the Administrator’s face when a month later she got a bill for an ad of which only the first part was listed: “Lonely RN looking for another RN to share…” Someone got hired shortly after the ad ran.
I wore this last night for “Cosmic” bowling. It glows quite nicely under a black light. Turns out that bowling while wearing a petticoat is not difficult at all, and it garners plenty of random compliments from strangers.
Stash busting stats: 23/50 projects. 49 yards.
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