· When Life Gives You Lemon Fabric.... ·

..... Make a dress, of course!

When I first saw this fabric at JoAnns several years ago, I knew it needed to become a dress. :-)

Sadly, the road to completion was long and misleading..... but I think I've finally arrived.  Or actually, it's more like I've finally run out of every last inch of this dye-lot of fabric so now I literally can't change anything. :-P

The first incarnation of this dress was a double-breasted, white portrait-collared dress.  I loved the pattern, and I was certain the resulting dress would be my absolute favorite dress, bar none.

Alas, that just wasn't to be.

The dress was OK, but it just never felt right.  It felt like I was wearing something foreign, rather than having my clothing just feel like a natural extension of myself.  On a practical level, the fit was a bit "off" in a few minor ways, but other than that I had a really hard time putting my finger on the problem!  I wore it a few times that year, and then packed it away in the hopes that later I would grow to love it.

The next year, I was away from home all summer and far too busy to obsess about uncooperative clothing, so it waited some more...  Last year, after completely falling in love with my fruit dress, I determined that remaking it into the same style was probably my best bet to rescue this still-beloved fabric. :-)

I didn't have enough fabric left to cut an entirely new bodice, so I bought some more fabric only to discover that mine was a radically different dye lot! :-(  So I tweaked my design a bit to have set-in sleeves instead of kimono, and was able to squeeze it all on.  I made the collar white, since I thought that would break up the fabric nicely and add a cute element.

But yet again, it didn't live up to my expectations.  I just didn't like it.

(Alright, I'm willing to concede that apparently I had entirely too high of expectations.  But...!  That  realization still didn't help the disappointment.)

So, I put the dress away for the fall/winter and hoped that when I put it on this spring I'd magically have a different perspective and be able to overlook all its supposed flaws.  No such luck.  However, I did have the epiphany of what it needed to finally redeem itself.  Simply: a matching collar.

So!  Armed with confidence and determination to FINALLY MAKE THIS WORK, I set about fiddling with my small, hodge-podge scraps to conquer the challenge.  I was so pleased to see that my collar pieces would fit just right in the leftover scraps. :-)  The easiest, quickest way to do this was to sew the fabric on top of the other collar by hand.  I trimmed,pinned, and sewed on the first side, but once I got to the second I realized: I had sewn the first side on upside down.  Oh, the agony!!!!  That now meant that my perfectly shaped scraps no longer worked for the other side! :-/  Ugh.  Sometimes I really hate myself.  Anyway, I finally worked out a way to *just barely* get the other piece on and piece it in a few mostly-unnoticeable areas. 

After seeing the photos of this, I think I'm finally reconciled to it and able to like it and wear it this year.  It still has annoying fit issues, but after all I've been through, I'm ready to finally call it quits and live with it. ;-)

So there you go- who knew such a cute dress could be so intensely irritating?? ;-)

Lemon hat!

(See?!  Sad little upside down lemons.  At least they don't look too out of place!)

A yellow and white polka-dotted ribbon and a chunky bead necklace made the perfect accessories. :-)

So after all, I think this title would be a bit more apt if it read, "When Life Gives You Lemon Fabric, You'll Re-Make Your Dress Three Times". ;-)

· Thanks for taking pictures that reconcile me to the dress, Kathryn!! ·

(See??  She really is invaluable. ;-) )