Kills Me Dead

I’m not much of a shopper but one of the things I definitely wanted to do while in London was go to the bricks-and-mortar Liberty of London shop to buy some fabric yardage because it’s prohibitively expensive to buy it in Canada or to have it shipped to Canada from London. Let’s not have any illusions: even buying the fabric directly from the store is expensive as it’s £20/m, which is about three times more than I ever like to spend on fabric.

But oh, this fabric! This is Liberty Tana Lawn which is lightweight and beautiful and totally worth the price, even after you see the exchange rate dollar value on your credit card statement. This print is “Mitsi – Green 1033C”, which I haven’t been able to find online anywhere except Purl Soho.

But I digress. This is View C of Simplicity 2246 and I think I’m in love. Obviously I made the whole thing out of one fabric rather than using two separate fabrics to give the somewhat silly illusion of a separate shirt and skirt. As I mentioned the first time I made this pattern, I’d been looking for a good shirt dress pattern for ages and I think View C definitely fits the bill.

Notes to self about some things on this one:

• I shortened the hem a bit because it felt rather granny like, but I think I might just keep it somewhere between the pattern length and this length next time I make it.
• The single collar being made of a single pattern piece is still weird but looks less terrible if you actually press some creases into the collar.
• Because of the exorbitant cost of the fabric, I made an effort to take my time and not rush through things, culminating in the fact that I bothered to buy bias tape to finish all the seams.

I think this is my favourite dress I’ve ever made, so much so that I’m planning on making another one shortly. Fabric.com is having a sale right now and they just started stocking Liberty fabrics for $29/yard (but that goes up to $33/yard on July 6), so I bought some Hot Pink Mitsi 1033b. So excited!