As we are moving into lovely spring weather the warmer days are calling for spring dresses! Our preference for these style of dresses is printed cotton. There is such a fun variety of designs available and cotton being a natural fibre is a nice breathable fabric to wear as the weather warms up.

This sweet floral print has a black background and a small repetitive flower pattern with raspberry, lemon and cornflower blue centres. The poplin fabric is a lovely dressmaking weight fabric and is 100% cotton that is 110cm wide.

For this dress, we used the bodice and skirt of the vintage pattern Butterick 5677. It is a semi-fitted design with a below the knee-length hem. The round neckline has a slit at the front that is secured with a button fixture and loop. It has a blouson bodice and a slightly gathered skirt that is pulled in to fit the body with an elastic waist.

The sleeves we added to the bodice was the short sleeve version from the vintage dresses pattern Simplicity 8335. It had an additional bit of gathering in the sleeve head which we liked and to keep in line with the finishings on the rest of the garment we also put elastic in the hem.

As both of the patterns have a set-in sleeve and the Simplicity has gathering in the sleeve head it left a little bit of room for the shape of the sleeve head to be slightly different in shape and not impact how the sleeve fits.

We finished the back neck edge using a bias binding finished on the inside with topstitching. For some of our recent projects instead of purchasing the pre-pressed bias binding, we have been cutting up some old flat bed sheets. They are perfect to get a long length of bias and a great way to recycle a textile yourself. We raided the linen closet to find a mix of old coloured sheets but this could also be a great find at an Op Shop. We cut a bundle of strips that are 4cm wide to have on hand for finished garments.

The floral print is quite small and with the remaining fabric, we made a boxy style top to wear tucked into pants (some fabulous purple linen pants that are coming soon). We like that pattern and fabric choice a little better than this dress as the proportion of the print are better suited to a smaller garment rather than an all longer length dress. Maybe this one needs some sweet ruffles added to it to play into the sweet floral design?

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