~wiws~ Bandana dress

 This dress is my first foray into Cotton+Steel's other fabric lines.  They've recently begun offering lawn, rayon challis, flannel, and double gauze, for those who want make garments with non-quilting cotton.  I personally love their quilting cotton, as evidenced by the many garments I've made with it, but I've been wanting to try their rayon challis.

I bought this fabric earlier in the spring after I sent back some of Gertie's spring lawn line, as I felt it was too sheer and the colorway didn't suit me.  I figured for the same price, I might as well dip my toes into rayon challis.  I know, I know, I made a bunch of stuff with rayon challis last year, but I still get nervous when I work with something other than stable cotton.

When I was working through my summer sewing pile this spring, I made myself make the challenging garments first so that I wouldn't talk myself out of them by the time I got to the bottom of the pile (yes, this happens sometimes).  I'm glad I did, because it meant that my sewing got progressively easier as I went along. 

I will say, this fabric was a little tricky to work with.  It was very slippery, and not as stable as the most of the challis that I worked with last year.  The other distressing thing that happened is that I discovered several oil spots on the front of the fabric before I even sewed it together.  (I sew in my kitchen, and my ironing station is on top of the stove.  I'm very careful to make sure all my surfaces are clean, but I made this on a Saturday after my husband had cooked a rather greasy breakfast for the kids, and I must have missed some spots).  

So I ended up washing this dress before I ever got a chance to wear it!  Hence the saggy pockets.  Oh well.  Thankfully, the oil spots mostly came out.  I'm sure another wash will take care of the faint lingering.

This would have been a cool print to cut on the bias, but I was already nervous about working with the fabric and didn't want to add an additional layer of challenge to the project.  I used a stretch needle to help the fabric to behave better while sewing--those stretch needles are really magical.  I don't really understand how they work, but they are so nice for thin/slippery fabrics.

Rayon challis is very nice for summer, because it has a good drape and is thin.  It also breathes pretty well; rayon is made from cellulose fibers, so it isn't exactly synthetic and it isn't exactly natural either.  It is one of the few non-natural fabrics I don't mind wearing regularly.   The challis behaved differently at the top of the dress, so it was a good thing I made the back neckline lower on this dress, as the sleeves fit a bit closer than some of the other dresses in my rotation, and the additional neckline room around the shoulders keeps it loose and comfortable.

The pockets were a nail-biter because the fabric is so drapey.  I probably should have used a spray stabilizer to make this dress, and then washed it out, but I didn't really think of it until I was too far into the project.

One of the reasons I chose this fabric is that I always consider what liturgical colors I might want to have in my closet during a particular rotation.  Big feasts are associated with certain liturgical colors, and I was sadly lacking in green this spring--both St. Patrick's Day and Palm Sunday are green.  (I've since rectified that deficiency, so I have a green knit dress for next year!)  

During the summer, I know I will want something green for Pentecost and something blue for Dormition.  I chose this dress for the latter as I didn't really have anything else that was so strongly blue in this rotation. 

Just the facts:

Bandana dress: Cotton + Steel rayon challis from fabric.com; Simplicity 1080 (redrafted), bias tape, elastic

Shoes: dansko via ebay

Jewelry: ebay