The St. Paddy's Day Dress Part 2: The Curse of the Busy Print

I love my St. Patrick's Day dress. It's comfortable and fun to wear, however, I discovered something interesting while wearing and photographing it. Due to the busy nature of the print, the details are rendered invisible...which makes me think I needn't have bothered with the details.

Somewhere in this photo are a belt and two pockets. 

The pockets on the dress are adorable, fun to make...

and invisible:

The belt is really cute...

and invisible:

Granted if you get close, you can see them...but I don't know if I want people squinting at my midsection, trying to make out details.

Next time around, I'm making the dress out of linen--solid-colored linen that will show detail--and I'm going to embroider the neckline and pocket using the iron-on design that came with the pattern. The pattern front assures me that the embroidery is "simple to make" and I'm hoping they mean simple for a person like me.

 Below is a photo of my first embroidery project, which I started when I was ten. I keep it to remind me not to start embroidery projects. It was supposed to be a bib for my baby cousin. You might notice that it's not a bib...that's because I think my baby cousin was in junior high by the time I finished it.

But I gave quilting cotton another try and really love my dress, so maybe I'll have similar luck when I try my hand once again at embroidery. Stay tuned...

The St. Paddy's Day Dress Part 1

I fell in love with this print when I saw it in the quilting section of a fabric store. It's been a long time since I've made anything out of a good old quilting cotton, so I thought why not? It'll be perfect for St. Patrick's Day. [Side note: Once upon a time, the only fabric I had available to me was quilting cotton, so that's what I made my dresses out of. Many was the time that some well-intentioned soul would seek me out to tell me that my frock matched their pillows, quilt, bedspread, curtains, etc. Because of that, as soon as I had another source of fabric, I abandoned quilting cotton and never looked back...until now.]

For the pattern I chose was Simplicity 3608 from 1951. I'll definitely make this pattern again.

I had to grade it up one size and shorten it 6 inches.

A dress like this calls for a smart belt. Fortunately I had just the belt kit in my stash of stuff.

The dress features an actual kick pleat instead of a slit. Here's the underside (kind of hard to see, but if you look closely you can see the fabric backing for the pleat:

And the right side...

Kick pleat in action...

I had a hard time deciding how to do the shoulder tabs. The pattern shows them sticking up. 

And here they are tacked down:

I tried wearing them sticking up, but they kind of bothered me. Here I am in San Francisco, the day  before St. Patrick's Day with my shoulder tabs sticking up. After we got done taking the photos, I tacked the shoulder tabs down. I prefer them that way.

Another shot of the dress. The sun was so bright everything washed out, but I think you can see the fit.

Before we got done taking photos, I made a friend...

One thing I really loved about this dress and the fabric, is that it didn't wrinkle. I packed the dress in a small suitcase, pulled it out a day later and it looked like I'd taken it off the hanger. If no one tells me that I match their cushions in the next few days, I might just make another sortie into the quilting cotton section of the fabric store.