Have you been wondering what happened to my 10 dresses project? It took a little unofficial hiatus while I waited for some supplies to arrive. Now, finally, I’ve got everything I need to make my dresses for March (super late), April (not quite as late) and May (theoretically still on time). I’d really, really like to get all three dresses finished for the end of this month. With the long weekend coming up I think I have a reasonable chance at it but it will be a lot of work squished into a much smaller space of time than I’d envisioned when I started my project. Sometimes that’s how things go. If I get these three done I’ll have only one dress left to go. I’ve been thinking of ideas for June’s dress but haven’t really decided on anything yet. I’d like it to be something very easy going and casual. It would be nice to use a jersey fabric or something equally soft. The All-Weekend Sundress from Weekend Sewing keeps popping into my head but I’m not sure if it would really suit me.

This dress says summer to me. That hot, sticky part of summer where it's hard to believe it will really get cold again. This dress is so lightweight. The fabric is Liberty's Tana Lawn in two prints that make me think of my garden. The skirt is cut on the bias making for a close fit that still allows for movement (and feels perpetually crooked - the first half hour in a bias cut dress always involves a lot of shifting things around).

I made a few pretty basic mistakes with this dress: I didn't add enough seam allowance to the top of the back piece and had to zigzag and turn over the edge instead of doing a proper hem; and I completely failed to notice that the bodice pieces were supposed to be cut from a double thickness until after I'd sewn on the bias trim. I decided not to fix that. It was going to be too much bother to unpick all the bias trim and I'd always be wearing a bra under my dress anyway.

On that note though - I really need to get a strapless bra that has a more slippery texture. The Tana Lawn, while fantastic in every other respect, has a tendency to be very grabby towards other fabrics. In looser dresses is isn't such a big deal but in my closer fitting sundresses it pays to be wearing silkier under things. On a related note, I think this dress would make a remarkably pretty slip for wearing under other dresses. I'm thinking of some silk charmeuse and maybe a bit of lace along the hemline.

I had some trouble with the fit of the back of this dress. You can probably see the bit of gathering across the back from the elastic I put in initially to deal with things. I'm not sure if I stretched the top back of the dress when I was putting it together or if it was just too big but there seemed to be a lot of extra fabric between my hips and my shoulder blades. Even with the elastic there was no way to adjust the dress and not have a huge fold of fabric in the back. It was remarkably unflattering when you consider that the fit was near perfect through my hips. I ended up doing a bit of pin-fitting and then taking out the side seams part way and resewing them. I was a little surprised at how much fabric I removed from the upper back of my dress (about 4"/10cm - those are my sewing snips for scale) and I'm wondering if I drew out the wrong size or maybe even the wrong dress back when I copied the pattern pieces out of the book.

My fabric for March's dress should be arriving soon but I'm still waiting to hear if the shop has got a copy of the pattern I want to use. I can't believe I'm six dresses into my project and only four to go! It's getting more difficult to decide what patterns and fabrics to use - there are so many choices.

I took pictures of January's dress on Sunday. It felt so lovely to put on a sundress. I know things will be warming up by the end of this month - just a few weeks - but it doesn't feel like it (wind chill of -45 when we left for work this morning). I am sick of the cold and to make-believe it was summertime, even just for an hour, was pretty cool (er ... I mean warm).

I used the same pattern pieces for this dress as for my November dress just removing the very top of both front and back and adding a casing for the ribbon instead. I cut a two inch bias strip to sew down the front and added lace over that. I left the edges of the bias strip raw for a bit of texture. My piece of ribbon was just long enough to thread through the casings and make a bow; I trimmed about half a centimetre off the ends to tidy them up.

This fabric is really nice. I don't know what it is but it smells like cotton when I press it. It's soft and kind of heavy and I like the way it hangs. It had an almost linen like sheen before I washed it but crinkled up a bit afterwards. It is from the stash and I had almost forgotten about it but something had sent me digging around in a bin of old fabric and it caught my eye. I know for sure that I didn't buy it. Several years ago, when I was living with a couple of girlfriends, we went through a skirt sewing phase and both Katy and Liette bought large pieces of this plaid to make long, swirly skirts out of (I think I might have the pattern too). I know for sure one of the skirts was made but I don't remember about the second one. There were lots of leftovers anyway and it ended up in my stash.

The strip of lace down the front is from the bag of laces that Samera's mum gifted to me a few years ago. I love using the bits and pieces from that bag. So many of them are unusual and "just the thing" to finish off a project. I sometimes wonder what they've been used for before and if any of them have stories. Some of them are quite old and a few look handmade.

p.s. February's dress was going to have its photo shoot on Sunday too but when I put it on I decided the back was doing something funny and needed tweaking. With luck and sunshine I should be able to get some pictures of it on Saturday.