I decided I needed a casual sort of dress for the variety of Christmas lunches I am going to eat my way through. I thought it should be light in case it’s hot, and loose enough to accommodate post Christmas lunch podge.

I opted for the DVF Vogue 1547 in some red bamboo jersey which has been lingering in my stash for around eighteen months.

Having made this pattern before, I was confident that all I had to do was to shorten it a little and the rest would fit pretty well. [later update: I forgot to mention both times I’ve blogged this dress that the pattern has a zip – a zip on a knit dress! Needless to say I jettisoned this and it so obviously doesn’t need one that I completely forgot that it is supposed to have one – I mention it here in case anyone else makes the dress and finds this post]

When I put the folded over fabric on the cutting board I could clearly see right the way through it and so I underlined it with a fine cotton knit from Potters Textiles. This makes the dress surprisingly heavy, and possibly not as cool as it might have been had I left out the underlining, but I do like the comfortable, luxurious feel that underlining gives.  However, it added to my making difficulties as the dress uses a fair bit of fabric and I was manipulating two lots with different stretch qualities whilst trying to make sure that the hang was right.

Once again I inserted pockets, but this time added them from the outset. The red fabric is so flimsy that I struggled to get them to sit flat and don’t think they are my best ever pockets.

My only other issue was the hem. I let the dress hang for a week so that it would drop, given that a lot of it is cut on the bias. I then decided that I would cut the underlining to the fold of the hem to reduce the bulk and then coverstitched as the blind hemming produced a poor finish. All this worked well until I laundered the dress and then it became obvious that the red fabric stretched out a bit, whereas the underlining didn’t move, meaning that the hem went very peculiar. I considered removing the coverstitching, but opted to cut the underlining away from the hem and this has worked. I’m still not happy with the hem though and may unpick it. I also think I made the dress too short this time – doh!

The pattern has a self tie, which I made for the first version of this dress, but decided it was too narrow. For this dress I made it again but this time a little wider than the pattern. I like this better but still feel like a sack tied in the middle so have opted for a belt that my Mother-in-law gave me, which matches the dress perfectly. How clever is she??

Bottom line? This will be my go-to dress this summer and yes, I may even wear it on Christmas Day as it is the perfect dress for floating around in whilst eating Christmas delicacies.

I happened to wear this dress to our staff lunch and had to play Santa for the Secret Santa gifts. With the red outfit all I was missing was the beard and the boots…

The details: pattern is Diane von Furstenberg knit dress from the 1970s – Vogue 1547. Fabric is red bamboo jersey from Clegs in Melbourne, underlined with taupe cotton knit from Potters Textiles. Belt is stretchy beads with a wooden buckle, necklace is vintage from Paris, and shoes are Neo from Zomp.