The Big Stitch - part 3, a finished dress!

After all the hand sewing on the bodice, the skirt of my Big Stitch dress was quick and easy - once I'd got the fabric. The skirt of the original dress was already a bit shorter than I’d normally wear. I knew that I would need to take some off the top to make it bigger at the waist, so it was going to end up shorter still. So I decided to add a plain black band round the bottom.

Black cotton; what could be easier to find?

Quite a lot of things, as it turned out. A hunt through the 'plain cottons' remnant bin in my local fabric shop quickly revealed that not all black cottons are created equal, and it took a while to find anything close to the shade of black used in the skirt. On top of that, the remnant needed to be a similar weight to the skirt fabric in order for the whole thing to drape properly. Finally I found a reasonable match, and it was a big enough piece. Phew.

The pattern was made by tracing round the bottom of a quarter of the skirt, drawing a line 15cm / 6" down from there, marking the extension of the fold and seam lines, and adding seam allowances. The original skirt hem was just an overlocked the raw edge turned under and machine sewn in place, so it was easy to unpick. I made up the band, sewed it on, and hemmed it the same way as the original.

Finally I made a simple tie belt from the leftover yellow fabric, and it was all done.

Transformation complete!

It's not a huge change (I doubt if it would get me very far in the Great British Sewing Bee 'transformation' challenge), but I'm pleased with the end result. It's given me a wearable dress with a bold, non-repeating print; which is something my wardrobe totally lacked.

Before and after

A bonus was the discovery that the new bodice is a perfect match to my yellow shoes. So I decided to dress things up a bit with more period-appropriate jewellery and a hat.

Pearls, and a black straw vintage cocktail hat

I should have added a handbag (and a cocktail!)