The “Autumn Skies” Dress

The Facts

Fabric: Around 3 metres of “Provencal Blossom” quilting cotton from Spotlight, on sale for $5.60 per metre
Pattern: Style 1077
Year: 1976
Notions: Some scraps of interfacing for the collar
Time to complete: 4 hours
First worn: To work today
Wear again? Yep
Total cost: ~$16.80
Baby bump: 16 weeks

Over at the Sew Weekly last week, the theme was the Pantone Spring 2012 colour palette. Due to having a low-energy pregnancy week last week, I didn’t get my dress finished in time for the challenge, but it’s all done now, and likely to be on high rotation in my wardrobe for the next month until my bump is too big for it!

Ah, the Pantone Spring 2012 palette…. So many gorgeous colours…. I must admit, I had a hard time choosing which one to go for. As usual, the final decision came down to what was in my stash that happened to be right for the challenge. (One of these days I’ll come across a challenge I have no stash fabric for. Heck knows what will happen at that point – my mind shies away from the idea in horror.)

Every year, when I make the trek down South to visit family for Christmas, my mother and I wander into Spotlight a day or two after Christmas to check out their sale. And despite my best intentions, I tend to buy fabric then. Quite a lot of fabric, usually. (Why is it that the Dunedin Spotlight store has far better sale fabrics than the Wellington Spotlight store?!?) Last Christmas, I picked up this blue and yellow vintage floral print craft cotton. Sure, blue floral isn’t usually my thing, but a blue this vivid? Well, it was calling my name and kept jumping in front of the other fabric bolts I was kneeling on the floor surrounded by. (Lets just say it was a Very Good sale. They were marking down heaps of the craft cottons while we were there. Bliss.) With the blue and the yellow in the fabric, I figure it’s a good enough match for the Sodalite blue and the Solar Power yellow in the Pantone palette.

What with the whole pregnancy thing, the patterns I make have been changing quite a bit lately. (Turns out nipped-in-waists of 1950’s dresses don’t work so well with a baby bump. Who would have thought it?) This is the second mid-70’s, loose-fitting-with-belted-waist dresses I’ve made this year (the other being my Braveheart dress), and can I just say – they are awesome for this stage in pregnancy. Roomy enough for a bump, without swimming on you like a lot of maternity wear can at this point. Can be cinched in with a belt, so still have shape (even if that shape does tend to be cinched somewhat higher than your waist). And they’re not actually maternity wear, so can also be worn post-baby-arrival, meaning you haven’t spent hours and hours making something that you’ll only wear for around 3 months. Perfect, no?

Style 1077 was nice and easy to put together. A few tucks, a bit of a collar, and you’re done. Not even any fastenings to worry about. (Somehow I managed to not notice the lack of fastenings in this pattern until I’d nearly finished it. Which is just as well, as I probably wouldn’t have made it if I’d known, due to a history of getting stuck in garments with no zip or similar across the shoulders.) It pulls on over the head nicely, and cinches in quite well. I like the tuck details as well, and the rounded yoke at the back.

Why “Autumn Skies” for this dress? Well, we’re now well into Autumn here, and that tends to bring vivid blue skies. And everything’s changing colour and going yellow and brown, so I figured yellow flowers sort of imply that. In a way.

Oh, like my new cardigan? I’ve wanted a mustard coloured cardigan for ages and spotted this one on Friday. I think it’s destined to become one of my favourites. It felt rather odd buying it brand-new (not something I tend to do at all and it’s been a resolution not to buy new clothes for the last few years now) but I’ve never seen one second-hand and haven’t found suitable fabric in the right colour either, so I gave in to the powers of consumerism. *hangs head in shame* I love this cardi though, so the guilt isn’t too bad. 😉