Sewing || Patchwork Dress

I feel like it's been a short lifetime since I last sewed something. It was always such an effort to drag out my sewing machine, but now that I have my sewing room it's always sitting there just waiting for me to use it!

A few days ago I was cleaning out the big pile of fabric that was in my bedroom cupboard in order to fold it and store it nicely in a storage box. While I was sifting through the fabrics I realised I had quite a few bits of scrap fabric. You know the ones, they aren't quite big enough to be made into anything useful, but they're not small enough to warrant throwing them out. So I decided to give them the best fate I could think of, I made them into a dress! It was by far my longest sewing project that I've done recently. It took my 3 whole days to cut and sew everything together, but I really enjoyed it and it might possibly be my favourite thing that I've made in a long time! (Although I think that about every new project I make)

I started by cutting out a heap of 8.5cm x 8.5cm squares. This was by far the most boring part, but it couldn't be avoided! Then I started sewing them all together to make the skirt. It was fun trying to work out which order to put each square in so that it wouldn't match up with the ones on any side! Cutting the squares and sewing up the skirt took a whole day, so the next day I got to work making the top of the dress.

Remember this white dress? I put some baking paper over the top of it and traced around the outside of the top in order to make a pattern for this dress. I didn't know how well that would work, but it turned out much better than expected! I got to try out a heap of new things for this dress too, I sewed some buttonholes for the first time for the rainbow of heart buttons I was putting down the back of it. I also sewed some proper sleeves. (Well probably not "proper" but I like how they turned out!) I had no idea how to do sleeves at the start so I sort of just guessed and was lucky enough to have it work out.

I even lined the top of the dress like all the pros do! Then for some finishing touches I gathered the sleeves and added a purple cuff to them, and then made a thin white belt to tie the whole dress together.

The progress of day 1, 2 & 3.

For some reason the dress reminds me of something out of Alice in Wonderland (I think it might be the sleeves?) But I'm not complaining! It's practically impossible to wear this dress and not smile, and now I'm just waiting for winter to be over so I can wear it all day every day while wishing that tea-parties were a thing that people do around here. Maybe I'll just go on magical adventures in it instead, but I'll be sure to steer clear of any suspicious looking rabbit holes!

x Erin