Monday, May 2, 2016

Horrockses-Inspired Rose Stripe Dress


Another finished dress in a new fabric from my new book! I've been making it my mission lately to sew as many of these new fabrics as possible and to use as many different combinations of patterns from Gertie's Ultimate Dress Book as I can think of. This fabric is the Rose Garden Stripe! It's a floral stripe on an ivory background and it's 100 percent cotton Dotted Swiss.


This fabric was directly inspired by vintage Horrockses dresses. Horrockses was a British brand that made the most lovely day dresses of the '40s and '50s. They were especially known for their house-designed prints and one of their trademarks was the floral stripe.

For my dress, I knew I wanted to do a chevron design on the front bodice. I used the basic v-neck bodice from Gertie's Ultimate Dress Book but added a center front seam, rather than cutting on the fold. I'll admit that I enlisted my mom to cut it for me (she kept offering to cut things! You would have done the same!). She did a bang-up job.


The pattern has both waist and bust darts, so here's what it looks like when sewn up:


I decided to keep the back on the straight grain, and have the strips running horizontally.

I used the basic short sleeve pattern.

The bodice and skirt are lined. The bodice is lined to the edges (there are instructions for how to do this in the book) and the sleeves are left unlined. The armholes are serged together for a clean finish. The lining fabric is a bright white cotton, which keeps the outer fabric looking bright as well.



For the skirt, I free-styled it a bit and did a sort of faux cartridge-pleating with rows of machine gathering. I love this look on dirndls; however it's usually hand-gathered and requires a lot more fabric than I wanted to use. So I decided to try the machine gathering, and I really like it!



To make the skirt, I cut a rectangle that is 3 times the width of the waistline measurement. I cut the same thing for the lining. I made the two pieces into tubes, leaving open about 7" at center back for the zipper opening. Then I basted the two pieces together and made about six rows of gathering stitches, 1/4" apart. Then pull all the bobbin threads together, gathering up the waistline to fit the bodice. This is slow-going, as you want the gathers to be even, and you have to be very careful not to break the threads as you pull. Once it's the correct size, I tied off all the bobbin threads in pairs.


If you want a similar effect but don't want to do the rows of gathering, you could use the All-Around Pleated Skirt pattern from my book and either make the pleats or just gather the waistline.


The back has a center lapped zipper. 

I took pictures outside near an old factory building, where there are also some cool murals. This one has sort of a pink Emerald City vibe to it. 


Idyllic mountainside!

Post Apocolypse! 


Accessories: pink Remix Rita shoes, polka dot hair scarf, and little pink earrings. And red nails, naturally.

Okay, back to the sewing machine! 

26 comments:

  1. That is seriously awesome.

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  2. wow, gorgeous! I love the styling too.

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  3. Wow! This one might be my favorite yet! Oh, the gathering! Magnificent.

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  4. Absolutely beautiful fabric and your interpretation of the style is flawless!

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  5. Your mum did a brilliant job of cutting out, you should give her a cookie or something!!! Very interesting how you finished your lining at the bodice, I always faff about turning it under but thisseams quicker so I'll give it a try
    Frankie
    http://knitwits-owls.blogspot.co.uk

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  6. This fabric is my absolute favourite Gertie design. The tiny gathers are genius! Love it so much. I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of your book so that I can start experimenting!

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  7. Wow Gertie such a fabulous dress!

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  8. This dress is perfection--I'm always sweet on dotted swiss! One tip on the gathering: use a heavier thread in the bobbin (you may need to wind by hand), then loosen the needle tension so that stronger bobbin thread will run 'straight' when sewn. You'll get those even gathers much more easily, and the threads holding the tiny pleats won't ever break.

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  9. Another beautiful dress! Your gathers are so perfect.

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  10. That cotton print brings back memories.
    It would be 1958-9 that I made a dress with a Horrocks cotton, and used a very similar one, except I think there was more blue in it. I used the border print to edge a square neck, and a more random pattern of the same print for the main part of the dress.

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  11. The dress is so gorgeous and I love that your mom helped. :)

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  12. I am making one of your dresses from your latest book and I want to line the bodice and vented skirt. Do I still use interfacing for the top part for the bodice of the facing part, or can I completely forget any interfacing and just line it ?

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  13. The details on your garments are always to die for. And I love dotted swiss! <3

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  14. This is stunning - love how you've used the pattern for the front bodice - gorgeous!

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  15. So pretty! And I love the gathered skirt method - I'd love to try this.

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  16. Great dress – I love how you can style it in different ways with accessories.pattern making

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  17. Pretty print you needed Rosy your puppy in this picture

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  18. Just perfect. I'm so impressed.

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    1. I hope you think that imitation is the highest form of flattery.
      I received your Dress book for Mother's day and bought this fabric.

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  19. What a smashing dress. Cheeky and beautiful!

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  20. I really like this - the gathering, the chevron design, the print. But I feel like the outfit is missing a focal point for my eye to be drawn to. Instead, my eye is left bouncing around a small, busy print without any rest. I might consider adding a wide, bright pink or saturated green belt or sash. This adds a pop of color that concentrates what we're seeing in the pattern and also breaks up that very busy pattern. I'd also choose accessories that are not patterned, all in the same color as the sash, so that you have three solid hits of color to unify the outfit - say, for instance a bright green headband, matching belt, and plastic bangle on your wrist. Just my opinion :)

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  21. I am so in love with this dress! I adore the fabric and it is so beautifully constructed. Slightly agree with the comment above, even just adding a skinny belt in pink or a contrast colour would make it pop more. It really is beautiful though! http://thesecondhandrose.blogspot.co.uk

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  22. Just got your Vintage Casuals book in the mail here in Norway and was super excited. I need to do a FBA to fit into dress patterns and notice you include an explanation for this in the book. However, the darts and style pattern you use for the dresses are very different from the one used to explain the adjustment. I am so disappointed bc i have no clue how to modify your dress pattern. Have you posted about this on your blog? Do you have any tips?

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Thanks for your comments; I read each and every one! xo Gertie

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