Antalya Dress with Piping

I've been meaning to sew this dress for a while, and I'm so glad I finally got around to making it.

To be honest I liked the Willow and Co. Antalya dress when it was released, but I wasn't in a big hurry to buy it.  I liked the style and design of the dress but wasn't keen on the two closure options.  Then An of Straightgrain mentioned she had planned to make one with an invisible zip and I decided that might well work for me.

I added some seam allowance and drew up a front and back facing.  I also cut the back piece as two pieces instead of on the fold.  It all worked well and I'm really happy with the result.

I bought this fabric specifically for this dress as I knew it would work well as soon as I saw it.  I followed the instructions on the pattern for piping to break up the print a bit.  Bright pink piping too! Definitely not my usual colour of choice!

It looked really big when I finished it but it actually looks nice on. It's quite generous, especially in the length but at least I know it will fit for a while, and considering the way this girl is constantly hungry at the moment I'd say she'll be shooting up again soon... I think I need to get used to Freya not being so small anymore!

The pattern instructions were easy to follow, although I did forget to include a couple of notches so I just lined things up as best I thought.  It was a bit strange to gather just a small part of such a large pattern piece, and I found that long curved seam the trickiest bit.  But even that didn't take too long and as I was taking my time it went together with no big difficulty.

I really like this dress.  I thought it was OK when I'd finished it but when I put it on Little Miss I liked it a lot more.  It's very different to anything else I've sewn and I think I will make it up again one day.

 We were stuck with inside photos again I'm sorry.  It feels like every-time I'm ready to photograph something the weather turns lousy.  Hopefully we're coming up to the tail end of Winter and the Sun will be shining again soon.

And of course we had to have some 'ballet dancing' I don't know where this interest in ballet dancing has come from but she is obsessed at the moment.  All of a sudden she'll stop and start moving slowly and 'gracefully'  I think a tutu may have to find its way onto my sewing to-do list.