august dress

I made this dress for Erin as another confidence booster. Japanese pattern books are perfect for that purpose for me because the biggest challenge is following through; the construction is not difficult. Erin picked up this cotton lawn and one evening before we went to see The Dirty Projectors she flipped through my pattern books and selected dress J from Stylish Dress Book 2. The dress features an empire waist and five buttons down the bodice.

I made it shorter (I actually used the skirt pieces meant for dress M) and gathered the skirt. The original pattern calls for six pleats in the front and six in the back, but after seeing the new Steven Alan Soma dress for fall (the purple paisley in particular -- it is gorgeous!), I have fallen hard for gathered skirts.

I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. I love how summery the print is, I love that it looks like a little girl's dress, and I loved adding fabric-covered buttons. After I had cut out the pieces and quickly basted them together, I took the dress by Erin's shop and she tried it on to make sure it would fit. I just know the finished dress is going to look so cute on her!

See? Confidence!

Since today is a holiday I intend to be super productive and tackle all those things I have been meaning to tackle for months: wallpapering a wall, making a skirt, an embroidery piece. Wish me luck.