The Anatomy of a New Dress

I was struggling this weekend.  I knew I wanted to sew but I had no idea what I wanted to make.  I've had an idea for a dress, and it will probably make an appearance in the future, that wasn't really singing to me yesterday. But I really wanted to sew...so I found another piece of fabric that was interesting and left it on my cutting table and went to bed.


This morning, I decided to read some blogs before working on the new dress.  In the back of my mind, I'm stashing away ideas for my summer vacation, a cruise to the Caribbean in late August.  On EricaB's blog, she has a great flowing long skirt...and as I was rereading the post, I clicked on her links and stumbled upon this blog, "Atlantic-Pacific."


Of course being the Nosey Nellie that I am, I went back to the last/first post and started reading and that's when I found this:

photo courtesy of 

Atlantic Pacific Blog

I've wanted a soft plaid dress like this since forever.  I know that I've diligently searched for fabric like it but obviously haven't found much because I don't have a lot of it in my collection.  But being persistent, I decided to carefully examine every shelf to see what I had because even though I've just recently put it all away, believe me I don't remember every piece. 


Touching, looking, pulling...I found this:

...a silk/linen blend that I have 3.5 yards of...that I purchased at least 15-16 years ago from a little fabric shop (Sevens) in Bloomfield, NJ...when I was living in Montclair, NJ.  I use to buy quite a bit of fabric from this shop because it was local and because she had great fabric...plus it was inexpensive and I had two little girls and a teenager at home at that time.  Not a lot of fabric money was in my budget.  


I was thrilled to find it after all of these years of hiding in the collection and it's perfect for my version of this dress.  Yes, the check is a little smaller but the color is comparable.  Now I love her dress' close fit but that won't be happening on my plus size body.  To achieve some distinctiveness, I've decided to add a waist inset with the fabric cut on the bias.  I will also add some piping to certain areas of the dress.  And of course, I'm starting with my TNT dress pattern.  So that's what I'm working on today...


...as always, more later!