Pink and Blue Rayon dress

 I recently drafted a new shirt pattern for myself and made a muslin out of rayon fabric.  It turns out that this is my favourite piece of clothing at the moment.  I love the feeling of the rayon, I love the style of the shirt - I reach for that shirt at every opportunity and so I decided I needed a second one.

I had another piece of rayon in my stash that I bought at the same time that I bought the last one.  It's such a pretty fabric,  It had the turquoise that I love, and the paisley/feather pattern that is my favourite, but it does contain a lot of pink which is not one of the colours I normally wear so I hadn't gotten around to making it up yet.   I pulled it out and decided I wanted to make it into a day dress for even more comfort.

I used the pattern that I drafted for that last shirt again cut off at waist length and then used the remainder of the fabric to create a skirt.  I was originally thinking of a gathered skirt but I didn't have a lot of fabric to work with (I think I only bought 1.5 - 2 yards of this fabric) so ended up just going with an A line skirt just above knee length.  Could have done with a bit more length at the back - It's pulling up just a smidge over my bum.

Due to fabric shortage issues I made the sleeves shorter on this version. I think next time I'll try a length half way between the two.  I think the first sleeve was a bit too long, but this one is a bit too short.  

Of course I had to add pockets - all outfits need pockets of some sort.  For this dress I add in seam pockets, and then top stitched the pocket in place on the front of the dress. It's not like you can see the top stitching in all the print and this makes the pockets much nicer, not flapping around.

I did have to piece the back of one of the pocket bags, but otherwise was able to get everything cut out. 

I added elastic to the waistband to give some shape definition and hold it in place.

The only other change I made was to how I finished the V in the neckline.  Last time I tried binding the edges, this time I basically made a facing and created a more square cut out.  I also use iron in interfacing on both sides of the collar.  All of this means that this neckline is my favourite ever.  It sits so beautifully.

I love this dress.  I wore it for a good couple of days before finally throwing it in the wash (the joys of lockdown I can wear my clothes for more than one day - it's not like my family care what I'm wearing!).

I still want at least one more short sleeve top, but I'm also thinking about a long sleeve version for the fall.  I'm thinking a full sleeve gathered at the wrist with elastic.

But in the meantime I'm going to enjoy my new dress as much as I can.  Bring back the beautiful warm weather - I'm so not ready for summer to be over yet.

Can I also just say - I tried cutting my own hair for the first time the other day.  Whilst it's in need of a wash again in these photos I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.  Yeah for new skills.