I think this says “dreams of snails”?

This fabric had me paralysed. It is a beautiful silk scarf that was a gift, I knew I wouldn’t wear it as a scarf, and I really didn’t want to waste it. It has a lovely snail design in quite vivid colours

I washed it and it went out of shape, which made getting the pieces on the grain very difficult. Given that it was slithery, slippery, slinky slik silk, I washed it in gelatine to make it firmer. This worked an absolute treat and to my joy I discovered that it stops the silk from fraying – at all! However, I think I overdid it because several washes later and the gelatine is still there (an examination of the first photograph shows the gelatine granules!)

I decided to draw threads to get the grainlines, but I couldn’t tell the whole time I was making it whether this worked as the gelatine gave so much body.

My next issue was which pattern to use. I started out thinking Scout Tee, but this didn’t let me show enough of the pattern and wasted quite a bit of the fabric, then I moved to the Stylish Dress Book top X, because I thought the straight bottom would allow me to use the handrolled and hand stitched hems on the scarf. I was anxious about how this particular top would look on me – it’s quite boxy. The hems went out of square anyway so I discarded this idea. In the end I went for the Stylish Dress Book, dress F – my old friend! I shortened it to tunic length and decided not to use ties on the sleeves, but to use little coloured beads down the outside arm. This meant that I had to join the sleeves together, but it’s a look I quite like.

How well do these beads match the fabric? They came out of my stash so I was pretty pleased with myself.

You can see I got the “dreams of snails” bit centre front, but it had to be upside down! This was very irritating, but I had no choices as it was so close to the edge of the fabric.

I teamed the top here with my pink linen pants (hair looks appalling – I’ve been swimming!)

and here with the kermit skirt

I managed to retain the hand stitched rolled edge at the front, but couldn’t at the back, so I gave it a bit of a dip.

I’m really pleased that it looks different from the two dresses I made, here and here and that I had very little wastage from the scarf.

Pattern is Dress F (modified) from Stylish Dress Book

Fabric is a French silk scarf gifted to me. I am claiming this as a refashion!