Hello sewing friends, although this dress is a little 'out of season' for those of us enduring Winter weather in the UK, I recently went on a little holiday (to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary), and, well, you've gotta make a new dress for a holiday right?
An added bonus is that this dress pattern is free and very simple to make.
Let's talk about the lovely fabric first. I've really wanted a white summer dress for a long time. They look so pretty and cool, and the double gauze fabric that I used could not have been more perfect! I should just mention that if white is not your vibe then this fabric is available in 28 other colours!
At the bottom of this post there is a link to the fabric that I used. For some reason this will only allow me to select the 'aqua' colour but please do click on this link to see the other colours that are available, including white.

The dress pattern is The Bardon Dress by Elbe Textiles found in issue 48 of Peppermint Magazine.
You can find it here : https://peppermintmag.com/sewing-school/bardondress/

This sleeveless tiered dress really is such a basic design it would be suitable for all levels of sewing.
Having looked at other reviews of this pattern I decided to shorten the bodice pieces by 1" (next time I will take off even more I think), and the only other alteration was to shorten the top skirt tier by 1.5" but only because I didn't have enough fabric. This forced alteration actually turned out well for me, I like the finished length - happy days! By the way I'm 5'2"
I cut a straight size C. My measurements are 35-30-40.

I should just mention that before I cut it out, I very lightly pressed the fabric. (Don't forget to always pre-wash your garment fabric guys) I wanted to keep that gorgeous texture on the finished dress and hopefully avoid much ironing after washing. Since coming home I have washed the dress and it only requires a very light press again (if at all).

As you can see the gathers in the skirt tiers are very subtle, which very much suits this fabric.
The neckline and arms are finished with bias binding made from the gauze, which gives it a superbly neat finish, and don't forget to add a sweet little #minervamaker label!

I decided to omit the pockets on this dress. I know, shocking. My reason was that I felt that they may show through, as whilst this fabric is in no way sheer, a 'double layer' of the fabric might probably be visible, especially in this colourway, so I left them out.

I am left with a classic, simple sun dress which I absolutely loved wearing on holiday and will accompany on many more. The fabric pairing with this dress pattern was a win although you could go for any light to medium weight fabric with a good drape.
Thanks for stopping by to read my post and a huge thank you as always to the team at Minerva for the fantastic fabric
See you soon,
Kathy 😘

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