Sunday 24 August 2014

Lace Lady Skater

Hey everyone! I'm back from our holiday to Australia and have a huge number of makes to show you so I'm going to plough through them a bit this week to make up for the last 3 weeks of radio silence. First up is my favourite of them all: A lace Lady Skater dress. 
Technically this dress is only half Lady Skater because the skirt is a rectangle so I could showcase the scalloped selvedges. The bodice and the sleeves are from the Lady Skater pattern though. The rectangle was the width of the stretched length of elastic which unstretched was my waist measurement. That unfortunately meant that I didn't get as much volume as I wanted. But I do quite like the tulipy-y silhouette on me. Always good to try new things, huh!
I underlined the skirt and the bodice with a navy ponte, but made the ponte skirt shorter so the scallops at the hem would be more visible. To make the lace pattern more visible on the sleeves I omitted underlining it entirely.
I did have issues with what should have been a simple, quick and easy make. The weight of the skirt dragged the bodice down, putting it 2 or 3 inches below my natural waist, which believe me, isn't a good look. As a quick fix I sewed the waist seam again 2 inches further in than the original stitching but then that created the problem of a massive waist! That was then slimmed down and eventually it fit. Next time Lauren just shorten the pattern first. Save yourself so much trouble.
I am really pleased with the fit now though.

The beach where we took these photos was 5 minutes walk away from our little chalet in Port Douglas and was just so beautiful! And it was practically empty because for all the Australians it wasn't beach weather!
Thanks to Dad who took the photos with 3 pairs of shoes and my rucksack in his arms!
It's nice to be back!
Thanks for reading,
Lauren xx