White Christmas

No, I'm not heading to the northern hemisphere for a white Christmas, I'd just like to share with you the story of a white dress that I bought a couple of years ago, and is still yet to be worn.

About two years ago when I was looking for a Christmas present for my father in Industrie (I bought him a shirt that year in case you were wondering), I stumbled across a dress on the sample rack that I couldn't resist. I tried it on, and apart from being rather transparent, I loved it. You can't really tell on my dummy, but the slip underneath the dress is really see through. It's made of the same chiffon as the dress itself. "No worries" I thought, it's not like I can't make myself another slip!

The Dress Before

Although I didn't need to buy anything to make this, it wasn't a stash bust as such, as I made this from some off white fabric left over from a dear friend's wedding dress a few (more like 7) years ago. So this fabric I would class as work fabric. So here I am two years on, with a new addition to my wardrobe, just in time for this Christmas. Using some of my leftover duchess satin, I made myself a replacement slip last week. I can't believe it took me so long to get around to doing something that was done in under one day!

French seams 

Narrow rolled hem

I started by making a pattern from the original slip, and then using another pattern for reference that I made recently for a bias cut singlet top, I had a play with the strap length, armholes, width and the flare (OK, the whole thing basically), until I was happy with how it looked. One good thing about having waited so long to do this, was that I decided to cut it on the bias instead of on the straight grain, since I have had such beautiful results with the singlet tops that I have been doing for a client. My original plan had been to just replicate the slip that came with the dress. With higher armholes.

I couldn't be bothered making a whole pattern as I would normally do when cutting something on the bias, so I folded sections of the fabric over and cut the pieces on the fold.

I made some bias binding for the neck and armhole edges, and voila! I can now wear my white dress. I don't know where to, but at least I have options.

The completed slip

All done!

Taking my dress for a spin

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