Gypsy maxi dress

We went for a walk around Lake Como last Sunday and we managed to take some pictures of my new dress I sewed last week, probably the last one before the delivery. It’s a gypsy (or boho) maxi dress with ruffles and cotton broderie anglaise trimming.

Here I am, unintentionally posing as a vamp…

I used a beautiful viscose woven fabric, perfect for summer because very light. It’s one of the fabrics that Stoff&Stil send me in June. They recently expanded their online shop to Italy too and gave me the opportunity to test some of their products. This is one of the fabrics I chose. I chose some fabrics for me and some others for my baby and they are very beautiful. I suggest having a look at their online website! I really like their jerseys in particular because it’s difficult to find nice printed jerseys in local shops here in Italy.

Here you can find their selection of viscose woven fabrics, if you’d like to make a dress similar to this one.

I also used a black cotton broderie anglaise trimming I bought at a sale in Milan some times ago.

I chose a pattern from an Italian sewing magazine, La Mia Boutique – July 2017: pattern n. 15 – long dress, size 42.

I needed a 2.9 mt length for my size, but my viscose fabric was only 1.6 mt (more or less half the length required). So I had to do my best and make some variations to the pattern, above all to the skirt of the dress that required a lot of fabric. I studied a new cutting layout and I changed the skirt on the basis of the measurements of my piece of fabric. Here you can find my new cutting layout compared to the original magazine’s cutting layout:

Originally, the dress had a full skirt with three layers of big ruffles. I kept only one big ruffle, the bottom one. The upper and middle layers are identical and smaller. I cut four identical stripes of fabric to make the three layers of the skirt: I used two stripes to make the upper and the middle layers and I sewed the other two stripes together to make the ruffle/bottom layer.

In order to do this change to the skirt and have a good ruffles’ width and length, I had to cut the bodice on straight grain and all skirt layers/ruffles on cross grain. I managed to use these two different cutting methods thanks to the print of my fabric, that looks similar on straight grain and cross grain. So it’s not visible the different grain line direction between the bodice and the skirt.

Moreover I had no fabric waste. It’s an almost zero-waste garment because I used every part of my fabric with only some centimetres of waste in the stripe of fabric dedicated to bodice and spaghetti straps, as you can see on my cutting layout.

My version of the dress is tighter in the bottom part of the skirt, but I can walk easily and I’m  totally fine with it.

I changed the bodice a little bit too. I added 4 cm tot in the bottom part of the bodice to get rid of the zipper. I can wear the dress easily without any opening in this way. I made a bodice muslin and the fit was great. I only shortened the bodice by 2 cm.

I replaced the adjustable shoulder straps with tie-up spaghetti straps.

I lined the bodice using a black cotton voile fabric. I sewed a knit stay tape on the neckline (front and back), as usual, to stabilise the seam and to prevent it from stretching.

I finished the inside raw edges with my serger.

This dress is very comfortable, for pregnancy in particular. It’s perfect to be worn on holiday and for city life, night and day!

I really like how it came out! I think it’s gonna be one my favourite summer dress!

SalvaSalva

SalvaSalva

SalvaSalva

SalvaSalva

SalvaSalva

SalvaSalva

SalvaSalva

SalvaSalva

SalvaSalva

SalvaSalva

SalvaSalva

SalvaSalva

SalvaSalva

SalvaSalva

SalvaSalva

SalvaSalva

SalvaSalva