The Last Summer Dress

According to my Instagram, I started sewing this Centaurée dress at the beginning of July, and I finished it two weeks ago. Two months from start to finish, wow… It didn’t help that I spent three weeks away from my sewing machine of course, but still; I couldn’t bear seeing it hang unfinished in my sewing space anymore! At least it was still summer when I finished it, so I was able to wear it once before storing it away!

What took me so long, you ask? Well, I had this great idea in my head of gold piping between the geometric panels. Which means I had to line the bodice. And shell fabric plus lining plus very thick piping equals way too many layers at the side seams for the zipper to lay smoothly. I tried inserting that zipper about five times; I even tried hand-picking it to get more control, but to no avail. I thought I had to either make do with a horribly shoddy zipper, or say goodbye to my gold piping dreams.

Then it occurred to me, I could sew the side seam shut and insert an exposed zipper at the back instead! I found this white zipper with gold teeth in Paris. I thought it was going to look perfect on the dress, but back home I realised it was a separating zip. I could have kicked myself! I looked for a replacement here in Brussels, but apparently metal teeth zippers are all separating?

Anyway, once again I had to think of a plan B, which was to cut off the bottom of the zipper, cover it with a piece of the gold bias tape I had used for the piping, and call that a design feature…

There was no way I was not finishing that dress after all the time I had spent sewing the bodice panels! And the piping, oh my! Not even the execrable fabric could stop me from soldiering on. When I bought it it was advertised as 100% cotton, but the last time I went to that place they had changed the sign to cotton/poly blend. You know how they say that blends take the best of each fibre? This one took the worst: it wrinkles like cotton, but it presses (more like, doesn’t press) like polyester.

After all the problems I had during the making of this dress, it took me a few days before I could tell whether I liked the result or not. It’s not perfect, but I love its shape, which I find very flattering (at least from the front. As you can see in the picture above, there’s a small risk of looking pregnant from the side, ah well!) and all the little details I added such as the flat piping, the gold topstitching and the patch pockets!