Frocktails Dress!

We had a Frocktails night in Wellington this weekend! I’ve had so much FOMO looking at the Aussie Frocktails events for years, so I was super excited when Sandra from Sew Social announced that she had organised one for us. I duly bought my ticket, and then started planning my outfit. And I had so many plans! I was going to make a By Hand London Orsola dress, then a Sew Over It Zoe dress, then a jump suit, then some Winslow Culottes… I actually started the Winslows, but I chose a wool rayon blend that I thought would have enough drape but it became evident pretty quickly that it definitely did not! They were shaping up to be a super huge pair of trousers. That was last weekend, so I was getting a bit stressed about what I was going to wear…

In the end I grabbed one of my newer patterns off my shelf, the Deer and Doe Myosotis Dress, and paired it with this gorgeous printed cotton from my stash. It has a print similar to an ikat, with irregular squares and lines, but it isn’t woven into the fabric. I bought it from Drapers Fabrics a few months ago, planning to make a classic shirtdress out of it, but when it arrived it was much softer than I expected. I’m pretty sure its a double gauze, I was able to separate the layers and it was pretty shifty, so wouldn’t have held the crisp lines of the dress I was planning.  Its lovely though, and it was perfect to pair with this pattern instead. There is a bunch of fabric in those ruffles, but they feel really light and airy in this fabric, and the Wellington wind was definitely showing them off last night before we got to Frocktails! I was a bit hasty with my cutting out, and I unfortunately didn’t notice that the bottom layer of my fabric had shifted pretty significantly off grain. It’s pretty loosely woven, so it moves around a lot! That means that the pattern on the fabric doesn’t run in nice straight lines and is a bit all over the place, but I’m telling myself I’m ok with it.

The Myosotis pattern was lovely to sew, as I’ve found all Deer and Doe patterns to be! My measurements fall neatly between size 38 and 40 on their size chart, but looking at the finished garment sizes I was confident in picking the 38! I did have to laugh when I tried on the bodice, the “empire line” waist was the perfect length for my short torso. I left it at the drafted length, because I thought it would look super weird if I shortened it any more. The only change I made was to add a couple of inches onto the skirt before I added the ruffle. I’m not sure if I lengthened it too much, but I think it’ll be a good length for summer when I want to wear it with bare legs and sandals. I was trying to think of the last time I made something with a gathered skirt, and I genuinely can’t think of when that would have been. I’m just not really a gathered skirt kind of person! I do really love the bodice of this dress though, the shaping with the darts is perfect to balance out the loose silhouette without swamping me, and the neckline and collar is so cute.

And it has pockets, of course!

This is definitely a summer dress, and it was absolutely freezing last night, but I was determined to wear it since I had finished it in time! I stuck my merino slip under it and wore my fleece lined tights, and managed to brave 2 minutes outside with no coat on while Emma, Gabrielle and I took photos of each other (we even managed to find a teal wall to make me feel at home). We copped a few funny looks from random members of the public, most of whom were wearing puffer jackets and woolly hats, but such is the life of a blogger…

Frocktails was great fun, it’s always nice to know that people won’t think you’re weird if you ask to feel their clothes! I now have a bunch of new patterns I want to make, courtesy of what everyone else was wearing… There’s going to be one in Auckland in mid August, hope you’ve got your tickets if you’re up there!