Floral Flora wedding guest outfit

Hi there! Today’s post is a quick break from my holiday makes because it’s time for this month’s Minerva Crafts Blogger Network make.

My cousin’s daughter Victoria got married last week and I decided to make a special frock for the do using my Minerva allowance.  It needed to be special as, nearly 11 years ago, Victoria was one of my bridesmaids.

I went with the By Hand London Flora dress, which I’d made before and loved, but not whilst being this size. So, back to the drawing board and lots of pattern tracing later, I’d graded between sizes and even made a toile of the bodice!! Most unlike me but I really wanted this to be perfect.

You can read all the details on the Minerva site , but I wanted to fess up about how it went a little wrong!

I fully lined the dress in light weight cotton lawn because I wanted the high low hem and that meant the wrong side of the sateen would be visible.  I finished the dress other than the hems and left it on my dress form for a few days to drop as it’s such a full skirt.

I hemmed the sateen easily as it hadn’t actually dropped; just stitched round at 1/4″ and used that line to double fold the hem up then overstitched using the machine.  The  stitches really don’t show much on this heavy fabric and it’s a VERY long hem so hand stitching didn’t appeal!

I then put the dress inside out on the dress form and started cutting the lining to the “right” length. And for some unknown reason chopped too much off the back hem, the critical point of the whole thing!!

I didn’t realise until I’d hemmed the lining and then had a right flap about what to do as it’s so visible when wearing the dress.

In the end I unpicked the back hem of the dress 😭 and then pressed it further up so that it met the lining fabric, making the hem deeper at the centre back, sloping back down to the original 1/4″ depth at the side seams and on around the front half.

I think it worked out ok but it meant I was still hemming it the morning of the wedding! I also decided to attach the lining to the dress at the side and back seams using little thread chains.  This was to encourage the lining to stay up against the dress instead of hanging limp.

In the end it was all ok, I felt great in it, the wedding was lovely and I was left with a beautiful, special occasion dress which is also fully washable (can you tell I have young children?!)

Thanks again Minerva for the fantastic supplies!

What last minute disasters have you had to rescue your makes from?

Becca x

Details:

Pattern: By Hand London Flora dress

My measurements: bust 35″: waist / torso 30″: hip 40″

Size cut: 8-10

Fabric: 2m of  Exotic Jardin stretch cotton sateen and 1.6m of red cotton lawn, both from Minerva Crafts

Adjustments made: graded between 8-10 on the bodice; removed small chunks from the front and back neckline; added in seam pockets; fully lined rather than part lined.

Future adjustments: potentially lengthen the bodice very slightly

Make again: Yep!