On a Dress with a Keyhole Neckline

In April of last year I found some marvelous Venice print fabric from David Textiles Victoria and Albert collection, which I absolutely loved (so much so that I have 5 yards of it in pink) and recently was extremely pleased to find in turquoise, even though it was only a small amount. 

Being in a bad mood and hoping to combat it by sewing, I eagerly pulled out this fabric, whipped out the pattern pieces and started cutting away. Well, I was too eager and after cutting out the front and back piece, I realized I was supposed to have two of the back piece, something that I didn’t have enough fabric for. However, I figured since it was a gathered skirt that this was a problem I could probably live with and with what little fabric was left over (goodbye matching hair bow :( ), found that I could at least get two pieces that would add up to about half the length of the back piece.

I then took out the pattern pieces for the bodice to find that the previous owner had cut off the seam allowances to make the neck wider. This involved having to do some measuring (as well as guessing where the original seam line was in a few spots), but this was more of an annoyance than anything else. 

I had fabric covered vintage buttons that worked perfectly!

With all the things that came up while making this, I still feel like this is one of the first things I’ve made where I’ve taken all the problems in stride and known exactly how to deal with them and did so. I only had to look up one thing to make sure I remembered it correctly, my bound button holes came out perfectly, my tacking on the inside looks beautiful, and I managed to get the print to line up without too much difficulty.

Please excuse the frizzy hair, it was a bit windy.

Technical details aside, I really do love the way this dress turned out! It was a perfect match for the bag I bought earlier this month and now that I’ve used ric rac on a dress, which I’ve been wanting to do for ages, I’m not quite sure I’m going to be able to get through a project without wanting to use it if I can.

 

When he was in his early teens my great-grandfather would go out for weeks at a time on a fishing boat off the coast of Italy and while he didn’t necessarily go to and from Venice, I love that this dress makes me think of that little piece of family history. ♥