Tuesday, 27 February 2018

By Hand London Zeena dress in upcycled Marimekko flowers

I planned to make this dress when I was in Ukraine, but somehow I lost the traced skirt piece and that put it on the back burner.  There are always many fun dress patterns to try out...

Finally I decided it was time.  I used a Marimekko sheet that I found at the Goodwill in Seattle. 
This dress is not lined, uses a facing, and has pleats to create the structure.  I didn't shorten it because it's meant to be very short for BHL - I just used about a 2 inch hem to shorten it somewhat.  I used size 6/10 which is my general size in BHL. 

I found nothing difficult in the tracing, cutting process.  I knew ahead of time that I would hate the facing, but I also hate making bias tape.  Unfortunately I should know better.  I really hate facings. 




I didn't do a lot of careful details with this because it was pretty primarily a muslin to see what I thought, although I did pay attention to the flowers not to have them in inappropriate places, or repeating oddly.  My Mum thinks it's cute but I don't like it at all.  The waist bothers me.  I really need to do an adjustment to the back to remove the extra fabric.  The pleats don't please me.  The fit is acceptable even without a swayback adjustment, but the style feels too cute.

As for the bad photos, my Mum needed cataract surgery and couldn't focus so I reckon they were still impressively good : )  (She's had it now and is doing great.)

Luckily I have enough left in this sheet to make something else, like a nice Willow tank! 

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