Akram's Ideas

Lemon Dress {Summer Sewing: Simplicity 2176}

When it comes to planning out what I will sew next, I seem to be inspired by fabric. If I haven’t mentioned it before, I love food, especially fruit, so when I saw this fruity lemony fabric at one of my antique hot spots, I knew it would make a lovely summer sun dress. 

Fruity Lemon fabric
Fruity Lemon fabric

I know what you and my sisters are all thinking, isn’t that a table-cloth material? Whether it is or isn’t doesn’t matter, I loved it and was going to make a sun dress. I decided that I would try to create something similar to the “Lime in Love Dress” by ModCloth.

Lime in Love Dress by Modcloth
Lime in Love Dress by ModCloth

To create this look I picked up the Simplicity pattern 2176 from their project runway collection. I liked the look of the wider straps and the pleated skirt and thought it was close enough to my inspiration dress to make a good match.

Simplicity 2176
Simplicity 2176

Now I only had just enough fabric to make the dress, so this meant there was no room for errors. Also since there was a check pattern and because I wanted the border to go around the bottom of the skirt I had to line everything up precisely. I didn’t feel like I had enough experience to cut this pattern out to my liking so, I put this project on hold until I could visit my mother-in-law, Miss Linda, for some advice about how I should go about making this dress. 

Miss Linda, being an experienced sewer, helped me line up everything. We decided to cut out the skirt pieces first since I knew I wanted the border at the bottom of the skirt. Not much fabric was left over after cutting the skirt, but Miss Linda, was able to cut out the bodice anyways, using some left over border piece for the front bodice section. I had some accent yellow check fabric about 1/2 a yard that we put to use as the top facing around the bodice. 

Accent yellow check on bodice top
Accent yellow check on bodice top

This project took two days, though I probably would have completed it in one, if it wasn’t for the fact that we spent over 2 hours that night in a storm shelter because of tornadoes, thank you Oklahoma. Despite the delays I did manage to complete the dress, unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera on the trip to see Miss Linda, so I don’t have pictures of the dress in progress. 

Once I got the dress home though, I did take many pictures of the dress on Quinn (Quinn Mann, is what I’ve named my mannequin). I only wish I had ironed the dress before taking pictures. 

Pleated skirt
Pleated skirt

I just can’t wait to wear this adorable summer dress.

Completed dress
Completed dress

 

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Akram Taghavi-Burris

designer, writer, educator, tech nerd, crafter, baker, sewer and vintage collector, who Brings Creative & Crazy Ides to Life.

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