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.

Finished: Cambie Dress

I finished my Cambie Dress, and I love it!



It's tricky to pick my favourite part; the sweetheart neckline, the gathered cap sleeves, the a-line skirt, the pockets... but after careful consideration I think it's the addition of the extra little waistband piece. Since my fabric has some stretch, but the waistband piece is cut so that it doesn't have stretch around the waist it has a nice stabilising effect in a very comfortable dress. Oh, and (I think) it's flattering too.



On top of all those positives about the finished dress, one massive bonus of the pattern itself is how economical it is in terms of fabric usage! As I mentioned before, I had 2.6m of this fabric and I managed to squeeze the pieces into a meager 1.5 metres - pretty good for a dress! (Leaving me a decent size piece left over to make a skirt)

The fabric is a stretch sateen, and I wanted to see if I could find some in a coordinating colour for the waistband - as you can see I found a matching navy (from Clegs).

I used some normal slippery lining fabric to line the skirt.

As I mentioned the other day, despite making a muslin of the bodice there were some fit issues, most likely due to the stretch in my fabric and because I used stretch sateen to line the bodice as well. The bodice was massively gaping through the front neckline.

The fit issues were fixed by extending the stitching line of the darts to convert it into a princess seam. This removed the extra fabric from the neckline. Shown above is the line of stitching I added, you can see the original dart near the top of the photo, and the added line is the curved bit further down. I also shortened the straps slightly at the lower seam.

While I'm pretty sure it was my fabric choices the caused the problems, I'm happy with my choice, as the double layer of stretch sateen gives the bodice a nice structure whilst still being comfortable.

Other than that alteration I didn't deviate from the instructions, which are very clear, and the inside of the zip looks fab! I even took the suggestion from the instructions to sew the waistband down by hand at the end, to make sure it was perfectly lined up. I'm glad I took the time to do that.

 

Since the flowers are relatively random I didn't bother matching the print, even on the centre back seam or where the pockets are. I think it still looks pretty good. The only print placing I paid attention to was where the flowers would fall on the bodice front.

 

Since I had already cut out waistband pieces in the print before I bought the navy solid I decided to use one of the space waistband prints on the inside - nobody will see it but it makes me smile. It also makes me think that this dress would look pretty awesome in a solid with a contrast waistband!

 

So in summary of a particularly picture heavy post - I love this dress! I definitely need quite a few more!

(Thanks Misaya for taking the photos!)

Lesson of the Week...

... if your fashion fabric has stretch in it, it's kind of pointless to make a muslin out of non-stretch fabric...

Due to some major gapage in the neckline, I think the bodice of my Cambie dress is going to have to become a faux princess seamed dress...