Faux-Sureau

Have you seen the Sureau pattern by Deer and Doe? It's a lovely dress pattern with gathers either side of a little placket down the centre front. This dress is heavily inspired by the sureau pattern, except I altered my bodice block to make the pattern rather than using the actual sureau pattern, hence faux-sureau.

  

I have a confession however; I actually made 90% of this dress almost a year ago, but I didn't finish it off before the summer weather disappeared, so there didn't seem much point finishing it off then, when I wasn't going to be able to wear it for another 9-10 months. So I finished this off in my Christmas sewing binge, and what a satisfactory project it was, as all that was left was the zip and hem! I was finished before I knew it!

The pattern alteration was pretty simple. I rotated the bust dart to the centre front and converted it to gathers, subtracted the desired placket width, and changed the neckline to a v-neck. I may have been a little over-eager with this last alteration, and it's a little lower cut than I would normally make. If I were to make it again I would also move the gathers down a little so they're centered over my bust rather than being over the top half.

Rather than completely mimicking the sureau and adding a gathered skirt, I added the good old standby belladone skirt as I preferred an a-line skirt over a gathered one.

 

To correspond with the lightweight seersucker fabric and keep this a lightweight summer dress, I left the skirt unlined, and lined the bodice with a very light weight voile (principally to finish the edges rather than to 'line it'). I also found that some tiny prick stitches down the placket made the bodice front sit much nicer. Lastly I hand picked a dress zip into the back of the dress.



I'm fairly happy with the fit. I did some stupid alterations to take the waist in, which in hindsight I would have done differently (or ideally made the waist the right size to start with!). These alterations make the skirt sit a little funny, but not so much that it's a big issue. The bigger issue is that while the fit of the dress is pretty good when I'm stood up straight with my shoulders back (y'know, good posture we all like to think we have but don't really), as soon as relax and hunch over the neckline tends to gape a little.

Pattern: Self-drafted bodice, Skirt from Belladone by Deer and Doe
Fabric: Pear Print Seersucker from Spotlight
Notions: Thread, matching dress zip, voile for lining.

See also: Bimble and Pimble, Tybalt King of Cats, The Nerdy Seamstress