Striped Linen Dress 2

What to do when you can't choose between two fabrics?  Buy them both.  Well, that's what I did when Tessuti listed some beautiful striped linens earlier this year.    This is the second dress I made.  The first is still unblogged.

My computer does not want to crop photos today, which makes it a little hard to see the detail.

I can't see this fabric on the Tessuti website anymore.  It is a gorgeous weight and feels so beautiful to wear.

The pattern is the Stylearc Vivienne Designer Frock.  

At first I was going to deliberately mismatch the stripes on the CF seam, but in the end I couldn't help myself and matched them everywhere. I even stripe matched my hem facings.  I cut the neck and armhole facings out of plain white fabric so that there would not be any show through of the stripes around the neck.

The main part of the dress is 1 piece, combined front and back, with no side seams.  First I cut out one side.  Then I sticky-taped the cut piece on my remaining fabric, matching all the stripes,  and cut out the second side.  This cutting technique turned out to be quite effective.

I left off the front welt pockets, as I did not want to interrupt the stripes.  This midi length always feels a bit awkward.

There are no side seams, which really limits fitting opportunities.  In the photo below, you can see that the side of the dress is cut on the straight grain.  Usually I take in the side seams at the bust level and let them out in the hip. The only fitting change I made to this dress was a narrow chest alteration.  I added tucks in the front and back shoulders to bring in the armhole shape on the shoulder.  It was just too sack like on me as originally designed.  I mean, it still is very sack like, but you know, there are sacks and there are sacks.

I'm not sure how I feel about the dress overall.  I imagine that if I owned a beach house that we spent the summers in, I would wear it all the time.  Outside of a summer house, it may look too much like a nightie, albeit, a gorgeous linen one.