In an earlier post I described a black wrap dress I made for Bridgette’s hen’s party. Well that was the second dress I made; this is the first one, which I decided wasn’t quite fancy enough. It is the So Sew Easy Brief Encounter dress, which I made once before in wide stripes. Did I mention that this is a free pattern? It’s like a t-shirt with a circle skirt attached and the previous version was my late mother-in-law’s favourite, so I feel rather partial to this pattern.

I made it from a thickish cotton knit that I had malingering in my stash (another 2 metres gone), and it is the perfect weight.

It drapes beautifully, has good stretch recovery and feels nice against my skin. The fabric wasn’t wide enough for the full circle skirt, so, as with the previous make, I added a curved band at the bottom. For this version I sewed it on, doubled it over and coverstitched it down. I’m not 100% happy with the hem and may revisit it before next summer.

I almost missed my chance to wear this dress but have now managed it twice. Most of the photos I took were early in the morning and I was trying to disguise the fact that I was eating toast. As a result many of the photos have my head chopped off, but here’s one where I am trying to look like butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth – literally!

I generally don’t like gathers at my waist, but this pattern gives me a full skirt with no gathers, and I find that quite flattering. I enjoy the way a circle skirt falls around my knees and am reminded of those poodle skirts we all wore in the 1950s. I wish I still had mine…

The thing I love about this dress is the twirl factor. Something I learned about myself is that I cannot twirl without folding my hands about my chest. Anyway, please excuse the copious amount of leg on display here, but I think you’ll agree, this skirt can twirl!

A final photo of the dress. If I make another one I shall reduce the length of the bodice as it’s quite difficult to make the skirt level because the waist sits quite low and I have hitched the skirt up with the belt. I definitely am disguising toast in this photo!