Silver Batik Dress

In my last post I mentioned some more peacock fabric that I picked up on my last vacation.  My plan for this fabric is to make another dress similar to my Avian Dress.  However upon further wearing I've noticed a few minor issues with the fit of that dress  - specifically the neckline gapes a little and I don't like the racer back.  Rather than risk ruining my good peacock fabric I decided to try the design changes I wanted to make on another material first.

I've had this material in my stash for a couple of month now, I picked it up at my favourite store one day when I found it, but had no idea what I was going to do with it.  Its a cotton fabric in a grey colour with large splodges of bright colours randomly placed all over it.  On top of this is a silver embossed geometric design in stripes.

As far as the pattern goes I made a modification to the shoulder slope for the front piece to make the front neckline sit flatter,

And then in the back I removed the racer back and created a deep scoop instead.

 I cut out the bodice and tried it on and liked the way it was sitting so went ahead and created  an all in one facing for the neck line and arm holes.  I finished the bodice seams using the overlocker then cut two strips to use as the waistband flaring them from the bodice out by about 1" each side.

The skirt is two rectangles sewed together with the silver stripes running horizontally as opposed to the rest of the dress where the silver stripes run vertically.  The top of the skirt is simply gathered and sewed onto the waistband and overlocked.  Pockets were sewed into the side seams of the skirt as all dresses need pockets as far as I'm concerned.

This dress is pretty simple, it only took one morning to make.  It slips on over my head so no closures are required and is a bit more relaxed fitting than my avian dress, I think because the waistband is a bit more flared.  Its cool, its comfortable and I really love wearing it.  I still don't love a gathered skirt and will go back to pleats on my next version, but for this dress I'm happy with the gathers.