I have missed this dress for so long

Anyway I decided to recreate another dress from I reckon about 1983-1984. This second dress was originally from Birmingham Rag market and cost a staggering £20 for a 100% cotton dress with skulls hand bleached into the fabric. It was lovely. It was actually full length ( maxi) but I chopped to just above the ankles since I prefered that length at the time. So when making this I decided to copy the originally ( badly made for £20) design.

So I hacked my 2m of fabric as best I could to give me the 2 rectangles for the bodice and the 2 rectangles for the skirt. Then the original had a very low V back. It was just cut out in a  V and when I hacked the hem I added criss-cross bits at the back which at that time were pretty common on V back tops and dresses.

The front has a slight shaping for the neck and the shoulders are slightly angled. Thats it.
Its a shapeless sack dress of a one size fits all type but with a belt becomes a proper lovely comfy darling dress which I already love.






Without belt to show the actual shape

Then with a belt:

With hindsight I should have added a seam centre back to get a better finish. The original dress did not have this. It also did not have bias binding on neck and armholes but I decide the badly made 1980s look with folded over and wrinkly necks was not what I want this time round so bias binding it is. In a bright yellow because it tones with the print ( and I have a whole roll of it). If I had some plain black cotton I might have had ago at adding the bleached skulls but this skeleton-party Día de Muertos fabric does OK and it will not make my hands sore😊.

Trouble now is I did not have enough fabric to make it long enough for what I was attempting. I thought originally this would not matter but when I put it on I wanted it longer so I sorted through my too large stash and found a skirt which was off a second hand dress I bought from a jumble sale ages ago. I made the Christmas fairy from the bodice of this dress so its been around for a while so a bit stash busting here as well which is bonus.

I carefully cut the bottom off the skirt and hoped not to have to hem it since it was already hemmed and then pinned around and carefully lined the centre panel up to centre panel of my skirt and shortened the hem bit slightly. Sewed it, overlocked it. Sewed down where I had cut it so it lies flat and yes looks fine and I can get away with that. Tried it on. Wonderful length but I sewed it with the good bit perfectly to the centre of the back not the centre front so end result I have a less than perfect front and perfect back edge to my skirt.

But really who is going to know other than me?

And when am I going to wear this anyway?

I mean I am going to wear it but it won't be a work dress. It would make a great halloween dress in fact but you can bet on one thing I will wear this along with bike jacket on a weekend when I do not care what the world thinks because no doubt about this one. I love it.

Maybe the fabric is slighty too childish ( yes it is!) but I am still going to wear it.

I am going to use the Burda Style Obi belt pattern to make a black satin belt for it too because I am thinking that maybe my low-hip-slung-studded-belted look from the 80s may not quite cut it right now even though its the right type of dress for that!
As you can see a RTW corset belt works really well tho!

Anyway doesn't matter. I like my dress and I am going to wear it. Its that wonderful thing about making your own clothing. Once you have enough of all the basic stuff you actually need to make you can really start to play.

 Thanks for visiting 

Bracken