Bettine by the Sea!

I made a new dress! It is the Bettine by Tilly and the Buttons which I bought along with the Fifi a couple of weeks ago.  After just having spent a (surprisingly enjoyable) week away at Guide camp where I missed my little luxuries like THE INTERNET and ELECTRICITY I was itching to get back to sewing.  I got home on Friday afternoon, traced the pattern that evening and cut the fabric out, then sewed it up last night. Job done.

The dress is very simple with no darts or closures so is really quick to sew.  I could probably have made the whole thing in one evening had I not been watching television at the same time.  But I missed that too!  I did opt for the pockets and button tabs on the sleeves because I like the details but I don't think they took that much longer.  It was such an enjoyable dress to make because of the speed and simplicity that it reminded me of sewing with jersey, no faffing just quick sewing and voila!  finished garment!

The fabric came from The Village Haberdashery and is a cotton lawn with a lovely smooth finish and a nice drape.  I had been saving it to make some kind of blouse but hadn't decided quite what yet and I think it works very well with this pattern.  I used almost all of the 1.5m I bought.  I decided not to try and pattern match but just made sure the lines of zig zags were in the same place.  There is one seam (which I put on my Instagram) where all the zig zags aligned perfectly but it was a sheer fluke and none of the rest of the seams do!

To save having to do proper pattern matching on the pockets I rotated the fabric round so the zig zags go vertically.  It breaks up the pattern a bit and I did the same on the cuffs too.  I had toyed with the idea of having contrasting fabric there but decided against it and instead just used two red buttons on the tabs.

I love this dress so much, it is my new favourite!  I really want to make more of these, I do feel that we don't have that much of summer left but I want to try and squeeze a couple more in.  It is so comfortable to wear and it feels very flattering.  Child, husband and I just headed down to the beach for the afternoon where, as you can probably tell from the pictures, it was fairly blustery but there were no Marilyn moments so it passes the beach test!  I have some chambray that I have been hoarding for a while so I think that will be my next version, maybe with some Liberty cuffs and pockets.