Effortless

...that's what making the Blossom Dress was...

I sewed the Floral Skirt in an hour...seriously one hour from cut-out to hem.  Now I remember why my wardrobe had a disproportionate amount of skirts when my children were younger.  They sewed up quickly and with a blouse made me ready for work.

Somewhere in the handling of the floral fabric, it started speaking loudly about being something else...that it didn't want to go back into the fabric closet.  So listening carefully, I found the cornflower blue linen that coordinates with it...matching the blues in the flowers.  And then realizing that I needed just a little something else, I went into the closet and pulled out several shades of yellow linen (yeah, yeah, I know don't say anything about the number of yellow linens I have!) until one coordinated with the original two pieces...from there it was just effortless.

Seriously, I pulled dress pieces out of the TNT dress pattern folder, arranged some and starting cutting out.  I decided that I only wanted the top of the dress lined because its been hot as hades here lately, pulled some rayon bemberg lining and cut it out.  Then I just sat down at the sewing machine and sewed.  The "hardest" part was changing the serger thread!  *LOL*

So here is the Blossom Dress:

and with my yellow cardigan for the bus which is like riding in a meat locker:

Some stats:

Fabric:
1 yard of floral linen from Textile Studios
1.5 yards of cornflower blue linen from Fabric Mart
.25 yard of yellow linen (who knows where I got this from it's been in the closet so long!)

Notions:
1 20" blue invisible zipper
3 yards of rayon seam binding

The interesting thing about slipping into the sewing zone for me is that I just automatically use techniques that make me smile when I look inside my finished garment...

Like these mitered corners at the back hem slit

I put a small piece of stitch witchery underneath the mitered corner,

then I press it flat - pronto instant corner!

Look, look the invisible zipper and the bands line up correctly at the back of the skirt.  Thank you Summerset because I used your tip ~ marking the zipper and then pinning it at the band first worked perfectly!

I did the joy, joy dance after this! 

When I tried the dress on it was a little snug around the middle and I almost went and let the seams out but then I remembered that this was a pure linen dress and I knew the fibers would start to relax during the day.

It's a little bright for work...but it's summer and there were no important meetings today so I wore it a double strand pearl necklace, little pearl studs and my nude slingbacks.  Conservative with a twist!

So what can we learn from this little adventure *LOL*  okay that just sounded too d*mn serious!  Anyway, my sewing shero Cynthia Guffey says to relax and enjoy the journey!  And I definitely did with this dress...I definitely did because making it was effortless!

...as always, more later!