Summer Sewing: Kew Dress #2

Before I had even finished my first Kew dress (which you can find here if you are interested), I knew I was going to make another. I just had to do it soon, before we ran out of summer in London! Luckily, even after that, we have a trip or two planned to places which will be nice and warm so there should be plenty of opportunity to wear it again. I can even picture it over a black t-shirt when the weather cools down which could look quite 90s cool.



For this next Kew  I wanted to make it a bit more wearable by leaving off the cold shoulder straps. I do really like them, but I just think that in order to get the most out of this dress throughout multiple seasons (and wearing cardigans/layers with it) that it is more versatile without the cold shoulder. Plus, with this heavier fabric I don't think it would drape quite as well or have the same effect.



This fabric was the only piece of fabric I purchased while we were actually in Australia for Christmas (before the whole visa debacle happened and I was back in Canberra for 2 months!), and surprise surprise, it's from Spotlight! It's a lovely cotton sateen with these gorgeous watercolour pastel flowers on - which is not a colour or print I would usually go for, but I felt like it was very appropriate for summer. I also liked the idea of a Kew in a sateen, as it gives the skirt a bit more fullness and exaggerated the size of it (I do love a full skirt!). The buttons I got at my "local" haberdashery store - it's actually a few stops away on the tube, but for range of buttons, it can't be beaten! I found them really quickly and they are practically a dead on match for the centre colour of the flowers. I did try a lot of other button options after I found these ones (white pearl, coloured pearl ones in pink/yellow/orange/green), but I just couldn't go past those purple ones! I also like that they are matte, actually, I feel like that adds to the flower vibe instead of drawing attention from the dress itself.



As with my first Kew, I made a size 14 (mostly because I didn't take notes about my sizing for the patterns I made in Australia, including the linen Kew, and I had forgotten what size I had made until after I cut out the second version), but I ended up taking in the waist seams during sewing. I think that is a combination of the fabric having a slight stretch and needing to go down a size. For the next Kew (and yes, there will be a next one - I have at least one more planned, in a slinky purple nightdress-esque satin) I will go down to a 12. The only other change I made was to hem the front of the dress to 4.5" inches, tapering to a 2" hem at the centre back, to really emphasise the high-low hem which is a feature I really like on this dress, especially with the extra body from the steam.



This is a quick turnaround from finishing to photos to blog post (although I'm writing this post a week early): I finished the dress about 4:30 Sunday afternoon, was taking photos by 5:30 and now am typing this at 9:30pm! This is quite quick for me, although I'm hoping to keep it up. I am really enjoying blogging my makes again and going into more detail than I do on Instagram. All in all, this is a lovely dress and here's hoping for some more warm summer weather to go with it!







(Also, please pardon me wearing my sunglasses - I often have them on my head in photos but I had to wear them today because I was having some mild hayfever type reaction in one eye! It didn't look very pretty...)

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