Liberty dress

I know I said I was done with my spring sewing, but I did a little reassessment of both my sewing list, and my closet and realized I had a few gaps in my spring rotation.  I also realized that at least two of the projects I had earmarked for summer would really work better as transitional pieces, so I've decided to pop them into the spring rotation.  

So I present: the Liberty dress.  I'm starting to experiment a bit with cotton lawn (it is so beautiful!  But thin, so not great for cold weather).  I have had my eye on this Liberty of London knock-off by Robert Kaufman for several years.  I had a swatch in my stash for a long time, and then it was on sale at Grey's Fabrics sometime last fall, and I snapped it up quick.  

It then languished in my stash all through the cold months.  I'm really glad I didn't immediately sew it up, because it would have been a frankendress, and I don't think I would have liked it as much.  The Dottie Angel frock really shows off the print nicely, and I am happy with the result.

I've gone back to using tucks on the last few dresses I've made (I'm working through my summer sewing pile) because I realized that they look better on dresses that I don't plan to wear a cardigan with regularly.  For dresses that I will almost always wear an outer layer, the elastic tucks or elastic band across the middle look great, but the tucks just look a bit better ala carte.  It is true, however, that some prints need a bit of breaking up in the middle of the dress, so then the elastic across the middle looks better.  I don't always know ahead of time which will work.  In this case, I could tell when I was cutting that tucks were going to be the way to go.  I also moved the bust tucks down a little bit more from where I had originally moved them--with the onset of my later 30s, my chest is dropping dramatically fast!  As long as they stay clear of my waist line, I'm okay with that.  :)

A bit of elastic across the back to gather the fullness.  I also added some length to this dress, as I've been a bit unhappy with the length of the last few dresses.  I fear I may have erred a bit on the long side, but I know that I like my warm weather dresses to be a bit longer because I prefer not to show so much of my bare legs.

This print is just so pretty--I think it photographed pretty well.  I think it will be lovely in the fall too, during those weeks of Indian summer when it is still hot, but I'm over my summer clothes.  I plan to wear this dress through the end of my spring rotation and then put it away until the fall.  I'm getting smarter about how to use transition pieces wisely.

I'm also back to using the tucked pocket that comes with the pattern--it just looks so nice, despite the small fussiness of putting it together.  I don't mind the other styles of pockets I've tried, but I really like this one.  I did have a bit of a panic when trying to figure out what color thread to use, as the color I had thought would work looked odd.  I ended up with a khaki-colored thread, which surprised me.  I was happy with how little it showed in the end.

It is still in the 40s today, and a bit damp, so I'm wearing a long cotton sweater and tights still.  I think the longer length looks better with this shoe style too.  I'm still wearing boots regularly, but am kind of wanting to wear some lighter shoes too.

I put a bit of navy cotton crochet trim around the bottom of the dress, just for a little something extra.  I think it is okay, but I guess if it really bugs me, I can just take it out!

Just the facts:

Liberty dress: Robert Kaufman London Calling cotton lawn fabric (from Grey's Fabric, but also available from fabric.com), bias trim, crochet lace, elastic

Cotton sweater: LLBean

Shoes: Dansko via ebay

Earrings: etsy

Tights: Sock Dreams (Foot Traffic)