Those of who you’ve read my previous two blogs will know that I’ve basically been procrastinating massively over finishing my #sewtogetherforsummer Sewoverit vintage shirt dress, justifying my stalling by sewing anything even vaguely shirt like instead and claiming that was the plan all along. 

But then life threw me a hard deadline in the form of a 3 month trip with work to Denmark with just under 2 weeks notice! The half finished shirt dress gathering dust on the WIP wallflower rack would clearly fit well with the Scandinavian style of classic basics, so I needed to get over my block. And fast. 

I honestly have no idea why I avoided finishing this dress for so long. It was such a easy make. I’ve made quite a few Sewoverit dresses now so the fitting was a breeze. I lowered the bust darts an inch, did a short back adjustment by another inch and lengthened the skirt by 2 inches as I wanted quite a full skirt. A lot of reviews had to lengthen the bodice but I have quite a short torso for my 5’8 height and found with the Doris dress that a high waist suits me so I left that alone apart from shortening the back even further for good measure. I did end up wandering at one point if I’m basically just a head in legs! 

I used a very light denim cotton I found in a local fabric shop. I originally meant it to be a wearable toile but then went and used the fabric I had earmarked for the real dress on a belladone dress instead (another interim “sew anything but the shirt dress” sew!) so the denim got turned into a real live boy. It’s very thin and creases as badly as my forehead since I hit 40, but it will be a lovely cool dress in hot weather. Which I’m optimistically hoping we will of course have in Copenhagen, despite google maps telling me it’s much further north than my paradise island. I overlocked all the insides and finished the armholes with a pretty pink liberty lawn bias binding. Then finally to jazz it up a bit I pink top stitched everything in sight. I love top stitching so that got me engaged for 5 minutes before I lost interest again. 

I’ve struggled in the past with curved hems so tried a new tactic this time. I invested in a Dritz Ezy-hem curved hem ironing ruler and also ran a long basting stitch around the hem. As I folded the hem up up I pulled the baste threads to gather ever so slightly then pressed around the curved ruler. And that worked yippee! No more ending up with little tucks on the inside edge of the dress or puckers in the hem for me! 

The final detail was these beautiful wooden Sakura buttons from Arrow Mountain. They’re utterly gorgeous and I debated for a while about whether to put them on a dress I’d cared so little about but in the end decided the poor thing deserved something good to happen in its little life! 

And after all that, here it finally is!