Friday. The day everyone says; “Phew, glad that week’s over, time to chill.” Not me. Not today! There is something guys just don’t get. Girls need advance warning of plans. Girls need to plan. And daughter no 1’s boyfriend stumbled into this one. He texted her last night to say he wanted to take her out to dinner tonight. Where? That’s a surprise. Ok, what is she to wear? Not jeans. Fancier than casual. See daughter go into a tail spin!! She had almost her entire wardrobe out and covering every surface in her room before you could say mushroom ravioli. Everything was either too casual, or too fancy – prom fancy.
And I walked into the next one. Remember my New Year’s resolution to say “No”? I forgot. I heard myself say, “Do you want me to make you something?” before my brain had engaged to stop those very words leaving my lips. Thank goodness I have a pretty good dress pattern run up and a stash box cupboard! A quick rumage revealed some black silk linen, perfect for the top half, and a grey crepe backed satin, perfect for a skirt. I intended to use the pattern I used for the Liberty Dress and the Reception Dress, with some slight modifications.
The pattern I had made for the other dresses has a gathered skirt. I couldn’t do that for this one, as the grey satin I dug out of the “fancy fabrics” box had been a dress skirt in a previous life. It was 4 sections of a very gathered, full circle skirt. The problem was that it was too much just to re-use onto the tiny waistline I was working with. I halved the skirt and adjusted the top of the seams so it would just ease onto the width I had, but I left the lower width of the skirt alone. Satin has such a lovely drape, and on this dress I am glad there is no gathering. The silk linen bodice was completely interfaced with a fine sheer fusible interfacing for support, and I lined it with a cotton voile. I didn’t have any black lining in my stash.
Now I am happy just to wear black and grey, but daughter no 1 needed some colour. I fished around in my ribbon box crate, and found a length of 40mm wide black grossgrain and a length of 20mm wide dusky pink. She was intending to wear nude shoes with the dress, so I thought I’d work this pink in somehow. Diving into the lace box I found a left over bit of old-gold coloured metallic lace. No idea where I got this from, I have tried to buy some recently and got nowhere fast. I layered the three and I love how they look together.
Fancier than casual? Check!
THE COMPULSIVE SEAMSTRESS 
Love the clever mix of fabrics and the purity of design.
Thank you Gail.