The Christmas dress

 

I hope you're all having a happy holiday! I've been staying at my mother's in Stockholm, celebrating Christmas the swedish way (traditional swedish food and hanging out with the family on Christmas eve). Also, there's been the usual running around Stockholm to meet up with everyone... =)

Last year I bought 2 metres of jersey and 2 metres of lace and figured I'd make it into a Christmas dress for this year. I came close to stumbling on the finish line here... I started drafting the jersey on Friday evening the 20th, sewed the jersey on Saturday morning, drafted and toiled the lace on the afternoon/evening. Sunday I packed for Christmas and sewed the lace-dress.

The bottom layer is a plain jersey dress, without sleeves. The top layer is more interesting - it's lace cut on bias. The lace has no stretch on it's own, but it's a loose weave lace, so it has some natural stretch due to that. But as I didn't want to join the two layers, I also didn't want the opening a waistseam would require. This was my solution:

A bias cut diamond shape in the side. I first got this idea from one of the dresses in the Hollywood exhibition at Albert & Victoria museum in London last year. I'm not sure how period accurate it is, but they did use paneling during the early 30s.

The front was also a new to me: I made a high cowl neck, with the bodice pleated to a midriff piece.

The skirt is my by now trusty bias A-line pattern. The back is also cut on the bias.
One of the trickiest part was figuring out the pattern layout, so that the weave strength on both sides of all seams matched each other.

This was a really fun project, and I'm thrilled I managed to get it done in such a short time!

Happy holidays!
Love, Erika