Summer's last hurrah: technicolour Tessuti Eva

September mornings, March mornings: it's the same thing every time the seasons turn. I waste so many precious pre-work minutes, rifling through my wardrobe and trying on every possible combination - desperately seeking something to wear that won't be too hot / too cold / too much what I got bored with wearing last year.  And my heart is hardly in it, because my mind is still fixated on the previous season's sewing, which is only just finished and not worn enough yet.  Stop the clocks!! YEGADS I STILL HAVE SUMMER DRESSES TO BE GETTING IN!

And yes, this is one such dress.  In fact, this is the summer dress I wish wish WISH I had made in spring. It is so much my perfect summer dress that I do real scowls to myself when I think I could have been wearing it so much more this year than I actually was.  I made it at the end of July, just one short month before the weather began to turn - and much of that month, I spent in Scandinavia.  It was killing me that I couldn't wear it for the cold IN AUGUST!

All the more irritating because I had the idea in January and for NO REASONS didn't get round to it.  January was when the second belgo-blogger sewing meet happened, this time in Antwerp, and the first of my many fabric purchases that day was this technicoloured chevron wax print. No such thing as Enough Wax Print - I absolutely adore the stuff!!  I'm not sure what exactly inspired me to pair it with the Tessuti Eva dress pattern, but once that thought was in my head there was no getting out, and now I've FINALLY made and worn the dress I can assure you: that was one Bloody Good Thought.

I made the sleeveless version, obviously. The armholes could do with lowering slightly for me and I have some pulling towards the shoulder seams, but basically the fit is lovely.  Of course, apart from the bodice, it hardly needs fitting anyway - the great attraction of this dress is in the lovely, breezy lantern skirt.

It's a shape best demonstrated side-on, but I was having great trouble getting a decent picture, and attempts to hold some kind of  prop were unsuccessful (darn cats, couldn't they just cooperate??)  So here I selflessly put my flabby upper arm on the internet so you can see how the dress hangs:

You can see that it's roomy and, despite the relatively structured fabric, rather flowy.  This makes it both extremely comfortable and extremely flattering (I know I say this about most of my makes! I guess comfy is just how I choose to sew, and I've FINALLY figured out what actually flatters) The skirt shaping comes from eight panels pieced together, and because of the grain placement I couldn't match up the chevrons particularly well, even with 6 yards of the fabric. I went for just being sure that things matched up well down the centre front and back, unfortunately with limited success (and with a lot of large but oddly-shaped remnants left over).  Anyway, in real life everybody is stunned by the print itself into not noticing whether the chevrons align or not.

In other real-life info: this dress is also perfect for pigging out in - I'd wear this rather than my Anna to a barbecue any day :-)

And BY GOD I SHALL WEAR IT AS A TRANSITIONAL PIECE! Draughts be damned! Slap a cardi and a loud scarf with pompoms on it!!

Are you good at seasonal wardrobe planning, sewing and wearing?  Or do you too suffer months of clothing indecision only to have it resolved a mere three weeks before the next season rolls round?