You may have caught my last post where I made a dress for Designin’ December, which has given rise to a new pattern created by my friend Sarah of Pattern Union, which I think is better than the original Marimekko one we copied because this one doesn’t have side seams. After I had made that dress I knew I needed more! I made all these dresses some time ago and I’ve been desperate to show them off and now the pattern is live, I can!

First up is my favourite of this batch. It has a protea stencilled on it, which I drew based on one we had growing at our holiday place. I’ll just say that again: I drew this flower!

Here is the original plant, and my drawing, which Sarah took and through some wizardry turned it into the lovely piece of artwork you see on the dress.

How amazing is that purple? This stencil is one of the ones that Sarah has included with the pattern so you could have it adorn your dress should you wish!

The green fabric used in the two dresses is from Woven Stories Textiles. It is a beautiful knit that sews like a dream, although it does seem to wrinkle a bit. If I was at home I’d give it a good press and retake the photographs; unfortunately, I’m away at the moment, so we all have to live with the crumples.

Although the dress pattern has optional front darts for extra shaping, I didn’t use them because of the painting. However, they are fabulous at the back for, as mentioned in my previous post, sway back issues.

Sarah and I did the stencilling on this next dress together as we made a video tutorial for her pattern release. I have managed to finish up with two long green dresses, but they are so wonderful that I don’t care at all. This stencil is one that Sarah drew and is an orange. We had to be extra careful of the pattern placement with this one!

This is such a great pattern and I feel extremely elegant in it!

Obviously this dress is ripe for hacking. Both Hélène, @hportemanteau and Suzy @sewing_in_spain have hacked their dresses into winter dresses and it’s worth checking them out on IG if you get the chance.

I made my short version from some lovely knit that I bought years ago at The Fabric Store. They did warn me that the colour might run so I washed it carefully in cold water and the colour ran so badly that I tossed the fabric into my stash and winced every time I saw it. I finally retrieved it and washed it in hot water (!) with that Dylon colour run stuff. It is like magic! The white is perhaps not quite as white as it was but you can barely see where all the black ran. The bucket at the end of the session was full of really black water so I can only assume that this fabric was seriously overdyed.

Although the lighting in this photograph isn’t marvellous, I’m trying to show that I had to take a little wedge out of both armholes as they were too loose. This busy print is very forgiving and you can’t see a thing!

Sarah took these photos of me and I chose the best one of Jasper, her dog!

I thought I’d just show a close up of that fabric in case any of you have similar problems.

The white is still slightly grey but the edges between the white and black have gone back to being fairly sharp with no bleeding evident. I declare this stuff a success and have been working my way through all my ruined fabric.

I am wearing my short Sumekko with an obi-style belt that I made years ago as I wanted to alter the proportions slightly. I have to say that this is my current favourite pattern and I have more makes to show you.

Remember, if you would like to make this pattern yourself, it’s for sale at Pattern Union, for a really reasonable price, and you can choose to buy it with or without the stencil patterns.