Red Spotty Block Dress

I was so excited when my copy of the new Oliver and S Block dress book finally arrived!

This is the first version of the dress I've made and it definitely won't be the last.  

I'm making a bit of a conscious effort to inject some colour in my sewing as I have noticed I have an AWFUL lot of blue fabric in my stash.  This was something I bought particularly with that in mind and I think it's worked beautifully.

For my first dress from the book I stuck with a very simple version.  I even left off the collar and cuffs to keep it really simple, but I also think the print was bold enough to just stand on it's own. I know I love adding collars and details but it is nice to have a simple dress that she can wear to kinder and not be the most overdressed girl in the room.

The dress went together quite quickly.  The neckline is finished with a bias strip facing.  It was just folded in half once and then sewn on which is definitely the way I prefer to use bias tape.  The trickiest bit by far was the skirt placket.  You have to cut down the centre line of the skirt and fold bias binding over it.  I had a good try but it still wasn't perfect and is something I'll have to practise.

The book itself is great.  The instructions on how to alter the pattern pieces to create new ones is thorough and provides lots of different design opportunity.  The only thing is finding the time to change the pieces myself.  I am hoping I will be brave enough to take some risks and using the features of the book, but I don't think I'll be completely giving up buying patterns too.

Freya loved the dress.  It has a bit of twirl to it so it's a winner in her book.  She actually hugged me and said thank you when she got to wear it.  I'm so glad it turned out OK.  I was felling a bit blah about it as I was sewing but when she put it on I loved it.  All in all a success and I've already started on the next version.