I had made this #LottieDress from #ChristineHaynes before and made three and a half muslins to get it to fit, so it was lovely to reuse the pattern without having to do any fitting. This fabric is a really flowy linen-viscose kindly gifted to me by Minerva. The colour is this are really rich and jewel like with a navy background, and pink, blue and green highlights. It’s a really subtle, stunning print.

I washed the fabric and line-dried it before sewing up and it shrank a little bit. I always pre-wash fabrics for dressmaking, but not for quilting.
The pattern calls for slightly more than 3 metres, but with a bit of fabric Tetris I got away with 3. This was partly because I didn’t use a facing for the neckline, but bound with 1.5 inch bias binding (open flat) I made from Liberty Tana Lawn.
I don’t always do binding the conventional way and I don’t pre-iron bias binding. For this neckline, I sewed one shoulder closed and used my overlocker/serger to sew on the bias on the flat. I had pre ironed the bias into a gentle curve. I then understitched the binding on the inside to the seam allowance. I folded in the binding on the inside right up to the serging.
I then basted the binding by hand with a contrast thread right along the very edge of the fold. I prefer to topstitch neckline binding from the outside and the basting means I can see exactly where the edge is. Otherwise it’s too easy to miss bits.

Then I sewed the second shoulder. I sewed the seam allowance at the neck edge down by hand – just a few stitches. This also allows you to manipulate the fabric if there is a slight misalignment.
I wanted to do a mitred-hem at the bottom of the dress. The given seam allowance is 5/8” all the way down to the hem. But I wanted a slightly more substantial hem. So when cutting out I went out to a total of 1.5 inches at the marking for the slit and I added 1.5” to the hem. I then ironed in half an inch along the slit and the hem, then another 1”. I mitred the corners, and then stitched the hem down at the inner folded edge (up 1 inch from bottom of dress).
The sleeves of this dress are given as two pieces, but I joined them together subtracting the seam allowances. They are cut somewhat on the bias. My joining sent the bias grainline marking on the pattern a bit skew-ways so I just angled the pattern piece as much as I could on the fabric I had. I’d say it’s about 30 degrees.

When sewing my muslins, I found the dress a bit too tight on my bum even though I had graded up to a bigger size there. I ended up introducing a centre back seam and curving out where needed. This worked well.
I’d like to make this again in a cotton lawn as a beach/sun cover up for my holidays. And I can see myself making winter versions in a light wool.