Summer Linen Maxi Dress

Everyone, but EVERYONE, at Mood Fabrics thought I’d already snagged this fabric.  Maybe the NY staff is creeping into my dreams, because before I stumbled upon this linen rayon blend on the magical top floor, that’s where it existed.

I snatched three yards from the delicious Kway (who did a burn test for me on the spot. I mean…folks, if your eyes ever need an afternoon pick me up, run on up to the top floor and have Kway do a burn test). He posited that he’d already cut this print for me weeks ago, which led to our usual highly enjoyable banter (“What time of the day was it? Is it possible I’d had a cocktail at lunch?”). On the way down the stairs, three Mood peeps said they were “glad I was getting more of it.” Diane greeted me at the counter, wonderful Diane, who loves fabric as much as we do, and she too was certain she’d previously bagged this for me.

Do I have a twin out there? Surely I would remember this! HOW MAGNIFICENT IS THIS STUFF?!! It has the most incredible silky hand, but not watery silky, more like windswept hay silky, know what I mean? No? When they invent the app for tactile screens, I’ll update the post. Surely, in a world where this fabric can exist, that app is not too far off.

The birds, however. THE BIRDS. The birds were positively Hitchcockian in their efforts to wound me! The bodice is fully lined with fashion fabric– thankfully so, since it gave me multiple cracks at which feathered breasts would rest on my own.

But the fabric repeat made the pleated draped skirt a lesson in insanity. I actually painted a few of those yellow beaks black down center front, under the pleat, so that the wind wouldn’t reveal a glitch in the matrix.

Can you spy the piping? My first crack at making it with proper cotton cording! Fun and slightly dangerous. Self-made piping: Let’s sew through a finger together! (No, let’s don’t.) I used the reverse of the fabric, so it’s barely noticeable, but I love what it does to the front bodice and waistband.

Some pattern info: I used Burdastyle’s Danielle dress , bodice portion only, as a starting point, hacking the pattern to ITTY BITTY BITS until I had what I wanted, then draped the skirt on my dress form. I finally gave myself a pass on the repeat–it’s nice to give yourself a break once in awhile. And for some reason, it’s easier to give yourself a break in summer sewing… more need for relaxation, less need for perfection?

And when I’m not focused on perfection I sometimes get my favorite dress ever, in one of my favorite fabrics ever.

In the end, I went back and bought more, making the original tale true. It will appear on my blog shortly, in, and on, a very different form…