Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours.....Missoni dress

I have been coveting Sew Indigo's Missoni dress ever since it first featured on the Tessuti website.  Not any more, though, because now I have my very own.
 

The pattern is Pattern No. 2, the one-piece side drape top, from Drape Drape Vol. 2.  The fabric is from EmmaOneSock (still available).  My pattern wouldn't fit on the fabric as indicated in the book.  To get it to fit, my stripes are more horizontal on the front and vertical on the back. 

 I used my personal tank top pattern to modify the shape of the neckline and armholes.

 

The fabric is a bit sheer, so on some occasions, a slip may be necessary. Most of my slips are a bit long or have the wrong shape neckline.  I was wearing this slip, now worn as a nightie, when I was sewing the dress, and surprisingly it works okay, possibly because it has shrink a lot (fabric fail) and the straps have stretched out.

 

I thought long and hard about how I was going to bind the armholes and neckline.  A very long time.  For 6 hours in a boat whilst I  was trying to distract myself from sea-sickness, I was mentally auditioning selections from my fabric scraps.  In the most recent edition of Threads, Sandra Betzina says that she throws out all of her scraps.  I save mine, and am often dependent on them to finish a project.  Admittedly, my nearest fabric store is a plane ride away.   I decided to use a woven binding, to help hold the shape as the main fabric does not have a strong recovery.  This binding is a silk habotai, left-over from a dress I sewed pre-blog.  I used an existing tank top to determine the length of the bindings, and was careful to fit the dress to the bindings, so that it would not stretch out of shape as I sewed it.

The fabric is so gorgeous that I used some of the scraps straight-away to sew a clutch for one of my sisters.  I used the Hotpatterns Crepe Suzette Circular Clutch, which is available for free download from Fabric.com.  The online pattern reviews for this pattern indicated that the marking for the magnetic snap is in the wrong place. 

The online pattern reviews for this pattern indicated that the marking for the magnetic snap is in the wrong place.  I used a heavyweight pellon interfacing that I bought a few years ago for a special project that never eventuated.

I changed the internal pocket to a zippered pocket.  I find zippered pockets to be more secure in these sorts of clutches.

Whilst I was making this clutch I was getting that feeling...you know the one...the "I'm not sure if I can give this away" feeling.  I quickly posted it off before I could change my mind.

Drape drape t-shirt

This project was a fabric fail.  The fabric was part of a bundle of fabrics I bought from a clothing shop several years ago.  It was a cotton / silk knit, originally in a beige colour.  I tried dyeing it, but the colour did not turn out as I hoped, and in spite of following instructions to the t, it was a little splotchy.  Now that I look at the photos, I can see that it is totally not the right colour for me.  Also, the fabric did not have as much stretch as I anticipated, being a single knit, and the top turned out a little tight in the hips. 

That said, I like the shape of the top, and probably will make it again in another fabric.  It is No. 4 from Drape drape Vol 2.  After reading several reviews, I raised the neckline and, from memory, I cut the hips wider than the largest size (this was made several months ago, only worn for the first time yesterday).