I was planning on making a straight maxi-length jersey Anna dress; black on top, this crazy-ass fabric on the bottom. However, this crazy-ass fabric is one I picked up in a remnant bin around this time last year - it was the oldest purchase in my stash by several months because I could never work out what to do with it - and all I knew was that I had "some" of it. After cutting out my first panel, it became extremely clear that I wasn't even close to being able to fit all the pieces on this fabric, and I had to rethink. The only thing I could think to do was a gathered skirt, so that's what I did.
The front panel is the Anna front panel, the other two are just giant gathered rectangles. Well, rectangle-ish. I tried to shape them a bit at the top. In retrospect, I should have shaped them a bit more. I had to do a LOT of gathering. And then take some honking great darts out at the back. I had every intention of pattern-matching until I realised the disparity between the amount I thought I had and the amount I actually had, and it just wasn't to be. Beyond that, it was pretty straightforward - standard construction on the bodice, piece of elastic in the skirt, boom.
(There is a large plaster on my ankle because my old surgery scar is doing something truly disgusting at the moment. For all our sakes I'll spare you the details.)
I got this done in the first couple of days of July, before the PAPMAP post even went up, largely because I'd started panicking about how much sewing I needed to do this month if I was going to have zero stashed fabric by moving day. I took it out for a walk the day I finished it, and I'm going to share a couple of photos, because my boyfriend managed to get some pretty decent shots on my dying Samsung (now replaced with an iPhone for reasons that definitely aren't Pokemon Go related and I'm definitely above all that stuff):
(I realise the second one is Instagram filtered within an inch of its life, but I can do that if I want to.)
I have worn this pretty much constantly this month, to a level where I've begun to get concerned about smell. It's just the best summer item I have in my wardrobe - super comfortable, the fact that the top is basically a T-shirt means I won't burn my shoulders, and having the slit at the front makes it fabulously swishy. I have no idea where I'm going to find the time or money to make another one, but I'd love to (possibly if summer continues on into September to make up for the fact that it basically only started last week). While bodging together a gathered skirt worked OK here, I'd prefer to have something a bit more... patternish for the next attempt. I haven't decided yet whether to make a proper Anna or just refine what I did with this one. A gathered skirt might actually be better for daywear, and it would certainly take a lot less fabric to make.
Smugface 2: The Resmuggening
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