Esther’s Giselle-M6706 Dress

Spring has sprung, with the longer days, wonderful flowers and unpredictable weather, I’m excited for what is to come – long warm days. That being said, I can’t stand the extreme heat that is summer. What better way to prepare than lightweight cotton garments?

This month’s box had the perfect fabric for preparing for those days where you need to have a natural fabric because just the thought of a synthetic fibre, gets sweat running down your back. I fell instantly with the fabric. I love cotton, I mean what’s not to love. It’s stable making it easy to cut, sew and press. I love the colour of the fabric. I’m partial to all types of florals. But I particularly like a white background for the warmer months. I don’t know if it’s a myth that lighter coloured clothes keep you cooler but I don’t care.

Looking at this lovely mix of white, pinks and greens; I just couldn’t decide what to make. I have noticed that a big gap in my wardrobe is skirts. I’ve been thinking and planning about plugging that hole but creating my wardrobe is like a plumbing nightmare, when I plug one hole, another one shows up. Making skirts is all good until I realise that I don’t have enough tops and blouses to go with them.

I really wanted to make a skirt. I had the Classic box so I had 2.5m of fabric to play around with. I couldn’t decide between a tiered maxi length skirt or a three quarter circle skirt. Also, sewing up a dress takes more effort than making a skirt, especially an easy basic circle skirt. It takes longer to get the fit right. At least for me. There are more pattern pieces and seam lines. But the return on investment is higher. The thought of what top can I wear with this skirt? Is said top clean? Is the top ironed? All those questions are much less when you go for a dress. On the strength of that logic, I decided to take the lazy way out and make a dress.

After all my thinking, I couldn’t decide what dress I wanted to make but I cut out the Sew Over It Giselle bodice. It’s a bodice I have done a lot of fit work on so I knew I didn’t have to go through the effort of making toiles and all. I did, however, scoop the neckline a little. I hoped I would be able to add a circle skirt to my bodice. However, circle skirts take a lot of fabric and after cutting out the bodice and sleeves, I didn’t have enough for a circle skirt. Especially since my preference is a midi length circle skirt.

I went through my stash and decided a box pleated skirt would be a good idea. So I used the McCalls 6706 skirt. I mustn’t have made the right size because the skirt piece was just too big. Anyway, I made it work. I would usually add in-seam pockets to full skirts but I decided to leave them out of this skirt. 

All in all, this was a great make. It was nice and easy and would take a lot of questions out of my dressing so I’m very happy with it. But I’m not giving up on skirts and all the questions they bring.