Teal Dress, a Quick One Hour Make

My latest make is not what it was originally intended to be and I am so pleased with how it turned out.  After reading one of Jo's posts at Three Stories High where she made a fabulous dress for her friend and a T shirt with some grey fabric I fancied some of that fabric for myself.  If you follow the link above you may have to just scroll down one post to see her creations as I had to search back to find the link (she makes so much stuff!).  Anyway I love the grey but I got distracted on the Minerva site and ended up buying teal jersey!    So this arrived and I thought yes another top for autumn, sticking with my resolve to make more wearable tops.  The thing is once it was here I could not picture it as a top and I somehow thought it would not do it justice.

I decided it would be a dress based on one that I own which has a nice simple shape, the original dress has no sleeves but I have put some short ones in the new one with a little detail.  Here is the finished dress below and I am so glad I went with this style.

I have taken a few pictures inside and out as I can never decide which is giving a better representation of the colour.  I already had this little hardly used belt and I think it really sets it off.

Actually this is probably a more true colour, but don't you get fed up with photographing things in the same spot?  This area always has such good light though.

I made a small slit in the sleeves, hemmed them around and then I found these little beads in my sewing box that go lovely with the belt.  I was looking for small buttons but these do a much better job, it was a simple thing that gave an interesting effect.

Here is where I lay the original dress on top, no taking things apart here, just cut around it carefully.

Here are the pieces ready to go, the fabric didn't fray or curl so it was really easy to work with, just a little stretch but not much.

So due to the nature of the fabric I didn't feel the need for any edging on the inside seams, it is for me after all.  It was just a case of stitching all the pieces together, a quick try on which gave me the idea to shorten then snip the sleeves and also take a little off the front and back hem as it was dipping a little in those areas.  That said it was ready in an hour, I ordered the matching bias tape and thread when I bought the fabric and these were a perfect match so I was really pleased with that too.  You just  have to love the projects that go so smoothly and turn out well.  What's more I found this colour chart showing the colour trends for Autumn and my dress colour is on there albeit with a different name, ( Shaded Spruce) I didn't know the colour was in fashion, good to know!