The Nearly-Didn't-Happen Ileana Dress

This dress came so close to not actually happening!

After careful sewing to get the collar just right, and sewing one of the best invisible zippers I've ever done, I realised that I had cut out the back bodice wrong.  Somehow when tracing my pattern piece I went too far out on the armhole and traced the side and bottom from the bodice 3 sizes up!!  I then came down with the most awful flu bug and didn't feel like doing any sewing for the rest of the week.

I was ready to call it a lost cause but then rallied.  I unpicked the side seams and trimmed off the extra and trimmed the extra fabric off the bottom as well.  Luckily that seems to have done the trick, although I'm not sure that the sizing is absolutely right, but at least it is finished and Little Miss can wear it!

This is the new Compagnie-m pattern the Ileana dress.  I fell in love with the details of this one fairly early on and was eagerly awaiting it's release.  I've had this Cotton and Steel fabric in the stash for a couple of months.  Freya was actually the one who picked it out.  I'd been looking at some fabrics and when I picked this one up she grabbed hold of it and said "lady" and marched to the cutting table.  The kids got good taste!

I bought a metre and was planning on a different dress but when I bought this pattern I knew it would look sweet with a white collar.  I used the half-circle skirt option as I only had the metre but it looks great.  The pattern has a number of collar options but I'd never made one like this one before so was dying to give it a go.  The skirt is finished with bias binding tucked under but I decided to leave it showing as a bit of an extra detail.

I seriously love this dress!  It's one of my favourite things I've ever made.  When I showed it to James he commented on how it looked nice and vintage.  I made this one sleeveless and I've already got one with the raglan sleeve option cut out.  It's one of those patterns where I keep getting ideas for more and more versions of it. Hopefully I'll be able to stop myself before that's all that Freya has to wear!