Navy with teal lace, texture-blocked dress

Navy with teal lace, texture-blocked dress

• 1.03.2014

I designed this dress ages ago, but finally finished it over the holiday. This amazing bright teal lace, plus some of my fave navy cotton twill (I got like 6+ yards of it years ago and have been slowly using it in pieces), in a colorblock/fabric-blog/texture-block dress. Panels of lace down the center front and back panels of the bodice (anchored in the princess seams), plus a panel hand-sewn down the front.

I used Simplicity 1913, which I've used before even with some piecing, but I've never done a contrast panel with the center front and back, though it's so easy to do with a pattern like this with the princess seams.

I got this incredible emerald/teal chemical lace fabric c/o WholePort, but it's so heavy it didn't really make sense to make an entire dress or skirt out of it. I cut the center front and back panels of the base fabric (navy teal), the lining fabric (navy lightweight cotton, not visible in these pics), AND the teal lace (see my Sewing Circle post on how to sew on lace and some lining options).

I sewed the front and back panel pieces as one with the navy twill, so the lace edges are sewn into the seams and zipper. I matched the centers of the lace in the front panel, but didn't space it out perfectly once the seam allowances were in. Oh, well! Maybe I'll belt it to distract! ;)

On the skirt I tacked the lace down very carefully with relatively methodical hand-stitching in teal thread. You can't see it from the outside at all. Then I hid the top and bottom edges in the seam and hem.

It was fun!! And I love manipulating simple patterns to get a totally different look from the envelope picture, with the same structure.

 I highly recommend it!, and thanks again to WholePort for the lace!