This is a dress I did not think I will be wearing too much this year, considering that I finished it mid-August and the weather in England, as you know is not the hottest most of the time.

If memory serves me well, I got my pattern at the last Leeds meet-up -SewUp North – at the fabric and pattern swap. So, thank you to whoever gave it away. It’s The Lily Dress by Cotton+Chalk, which came for free with issue 29 of Simply Sewing.

I chose to make View A in size S, with this crazy jersey I bought at my local Abakhan store.Due to the directionality print on my fabric, I decided to cut the skirt pieces on the grain and not on the bias as the pattern was asking. I also tried to match the black squares.Because I wanted to make using my overlocker, I reduced the side and shoulder seams to 0.6 cm.

However, I left the neckline and armhole seams as they were. After I drew the seam allowance onto the pattern pieces, I traced it onto knit interfacing – like facings trying to stabilise the fabric to avoid wavy seams.Before I started the actual construction of my dress, I fused all the interfacing pieces to my fabric. I used the knit staytape to stabilize the hems as well.

After overlocking the shoulder and side seams, I turned the seam allowance on the neckline and armholes twice and used a zig-zag stitch on my machine. I used the same stitch on the hems.

I am quite pleased with the fit of my dress. And as I mentioned earlier, while on holiday in Romania I wore it a lot.

I think that I’ll make another tie belt for it in a contrasting colour or use the red one that I have for another dress to give it a bit of contrast around my waist.