Hawaiian Fern Dress

I brought 4 lengths of fabric back from my trip to Hawaii last fall, and I'm happy to report that the second length has been sewn up. The purple fern print became a Colette Hazel dress.

I chose this dress pattern to highlight the print pattern on the fabric, as the dress was designed with a border-print fabric option. While my fabric isn't a true border print, it's definitely directional with the design weighted toward the edges - something I wanted to highlight. Plus, Hazel has a dirndl-style skirt which gives an open canvas for the large print.

The thing I'm most proud of with this dress is my finishings. Once upon a time, I sewed up my seams, pressed them, and called everything done. In lucky cases, I broke out my pinking shears. I now find it very important to finish my seams to prevent fraying. I used a number of different techniques to finish seams in dress, including: overlocking, french seams, and bias enclosed seams. The exact finish depended on the construction of that part of the dress, but I think this will stand up better than some of my first sewing projects.

I've actually been waiting a few months to show this off as it's been a chilly spring here in Wisconsin. Now that it's summer, I'm looking forward to wearing this dress a lot - to work with a small suit jacket and on the weekends with a cardigan.