It has once again been quite on here because we have been on holiday and I didn’t even bother have the time to announce it before leaving. Anyway, we had a lovely time climbing mountains, swimming in cold water, having encounters with big cows and celebrating the baptism of my niece who happens to have, by the way, a lovely and very well dressed god mother.

I will really try to catch up on all the things I have been working on (believe it or not but I have been knitting a lot) but for now I’ll have to start with a dress that I made a few months ago as I have at least a few pictures on the computer already. And no, it is not a scrap project.

It was a proper independent project from start to finish. I took my client to the fabric shop and she chose, very unsurprisingly a rather odd fabric considering that she is not a 50s wall in need of a fresh wallpaper. And wanted to combine it with a not at all in any sense matching fabric. (The second customer joining on this trip chose a light grey cotton with big white dots for a knight costume still to be made)

I asked my client to bring some sketches to our second appointment where I tried to find out what she was really looking for and what would suit her type.

Once we had agreed on the final design, I took her measurements and made the pattern and a calico version (sadly no picture of that step) to see if it would fit her.

The next appointment was about necessary alterations and to see if it needed a zip or not. Together we agreed on a zip just to leave a bit of room for growing.

In the next step I started to work on the actual dress but before I could finally hand it over we needed another urgent meeting to discuss the trimming around the neck and armholes. My choice would have been a plain white bias binding but hey, I don’t have to wear it.

So, we have a straight and long upper part in a nice medium weight cotton and a rather bouncy skirt with three layers of frills (each being a full and separately cut circle –  I have used up more than a meter of that lightweight cotton, just for that short skirt)

The bias binding for the edges have a mini crochet edge which make it a bit stiff and therefore not ideal to go around narrow curves and I particularly struggled with the finish of he invisible zip. Hopefully I will do better next time 🙂

In any case it was a perfect dress for the baptism and both, my client and I, are very happy with the result. I wouldn’t want to be the person who has to iron this nightmare though. Knowing the client she probably has some kind of housekeeper who has to do it for her.