Summertime Cambie Dress

If you follow me on instagram you will have seen that a couple of weeks ago I started a new project with the lovely Lilac embroidery anglais that I bought at the Rag Market in Birmingham back when I visited in July. Right from the outset this fabric was destined to become a full-skirted Cambie dress from Sewaholic Patterns. However, since it is definitely a summer dress I had no desire to make it up while it was still winter. However, summer has definitely arrived (in proper Melbourne style with a mix of sunshine and rain, and temperatures ranging from 10 to 40 degrees celcius), so the dress needed to be made!

While making up the dress I decided that it would be interesting to track how long the dress took me to make, so I made some notes of my progress as I worked away. It should be noted that as I have already made the Cambie, the pattern was already prepared (with the exception of the two full-skirt pieces) and I didn't have to worry about which size I was making. Times are rounded to the nearest 5 minutes.

I won't bore you with the details of the breakdown of the construction times, but the dress took me about 7 hours and 10 minutes. That also includes a couple of mistakes I made that I had to undo and fix.

It took a little longer than I think it normally should have because I altered the construction slightly to accommodate the holes in my fabric (which is where one of the mistakes came in). I used the lining as part lining and part underlining.

I stitched the neckline as if it were lining to finish that edge, but I did the darts with both layers together so that you can't see the darts through the holes in the fabric. I then did something funky with the waistband so it's all totally enclosed (as because of the darts with both layers I couldn't do it the normal way.

The last change I made was to add a thin line of milliners elastic in a little channel along the neckline of the dress, as it was gaping very slightly (but not as much as my last version, so I didn't add princess seams like that one). The elastic has pulled the neckline in that little bit it needed and I don't think it looks too obtrusive.

In true confusion of methods, I hand-picked the zip but machine stitched the hem - pick your hand sewing battles I say! The hand picking of the zip probably added about half an hour to the construction time over doing it by machine; but that's assuming that the topstitching went well first try by machine! Sadly I've seen in the photos that the zip pulls a little at the waistband and you can see the zip there, but nevermind! If that's the worst thing about the dress I'll survive!

A massive thanks must also go to Sarah for being my photographer today, as well as being a superb sewing enabler (I am kinda now the owner of a copy of the Cordova Pattern, whoops!), and of course allowing me to use today's trendiest accessory to any summer dress, her beautiful daughter.