Sydney Sewing Social Series: Dress #1 - The Flipperty Liberty Frock

Hello! Do you sew specifically for your holidays? I do! As I think everyone knows, I went with the Lovely Leith (how lucky am I to have met such a great sewing mate?) to Sydney this past weekend for the Sydney Sewing Social that Christy organised. And I sewed three dresses specifically for it.

Here is the tale of #1 - the Flipperty Liberty Dress.

You know how you want to be really comfy at the airport, enabling you to have a few glasses of prosecco and then jump on the plane and maybe have another glass? Well, I made a modified Gabby to suit that purpose.

I made it in one of the new season Liberty lawns. I wanted something bright and fun to go with my new necklace (made by friends of mine - twin girls who sell at redphoenixemporium.com). This new Liberty jumped off the webpage at me and into my shopping basket!

To modify the Gabby I:

• Left off the sleeves;
• Used the same binding technique used on the neck for the armholes;
• Chopped the dress off at 65cm; 
• Did two rectangles the width of the Liberty (137cm) by 20cm gathered onto the bottom of the dress for a ruffle. I used a 3cm hem; and
• I thought about doing a 'bubble' hem but decided the lawn was not quite soft enough for it. 

These modifications worked a treat. I now have a very comfy but sassy (so I think!) dress! I've worn this a lot - to Play Group with Little M (that is when the pictures above were taken) and to a play date with some of my Mothers' Group friends. It survived Little M weeing on me (we're toilet training at the moment), banana being squished into it, and some vomit from a five month old bubba. And no one could tell it had met these misfortunes due to that lovely colourful and crazy print! Of course, most importantly, it withstood some very fun prosecco-drinking adventures with Leith on friday night.

Anyway - a bit later this week I'll post about the dress I wore to the actual Sydney Sewing Social. What fun we all had!! I want to go back!