#Sewtogetherforsummer Rainbow Kielo Dress

I know I am late to the party but I finally have a wrap dress to enter in this year’s #sewtogetherforsummer challenge! This was actually my first Named Clothing Kielo Wrap Dress that I made as a wearable toile for the Starry Night Kielo I made earlier this year. I actually made this dress in February but wasn’t happy with it so it’s been in the naughty corner of my sewing room for four months! I made this intending for it to be a wearable toile but decided upon finishing it that it wasn’t very wearable!

The fabric was is a really slinky viscose jersey that I found really tricky to cut out so I quickly decided that stripe matching was out of the window. Then I had trouble with getting sewing the straps – the stripes are not printed perfectly perpendicular to the grainline so when I cut the straps horizontally in line with the stripes they kept twisting wierdly when they went through the machine. SO I had to cut a second lot of straps, this time vertically, along the selvedge, this meant that they had less stretch and were cut with the grainline so they sewed up much better the second time around.

The thing that really put this dress in the UFO pile was the finishing of the neck and armbands. The pattern gives two options for finishing these – either turning under and topstitching or binding. I decided that to get a really nice finish I would bind them but the fabric just stretched out and the neckline and armholes just got really misshapen. That was the nail in the coffin of a tricky project so this dress got completely ignored for months!

After seeing the beautiful Kielo that Elena made I decided I should resurrect this one, I asked Elena how she finished the arm and neck holes and she said she turned and topstiched. What I should have done in the first place! Hers looked so beautifully finished so I decided to go for it! I ripped out the binding and  put it through the was so the fabric could recover then turned and topstitched down. Now I have a wearable dress!

I am sure you have seen that there have been some beautiful makes out of this fabric on Instagram – Hila of Saturday Night Stitch made a gorgeous maxi dress and Rosa made a lovely top which was actually on the front cover of Issue 4 of Suzy Magazine. I am so glad to have resurrected this dress so it can join in the #sewtogetherforsummer challenge!

Finally, these pictures were taken on a lovely beach near Seahouses in Northumberland. It is such a beautiful part of the world, but even though it was gorgeously sunny it was so cold and windy! So cold I didn’t even remember to take off my cardigan to show off my sleeveless dress and new tattoo! I am going to leave you with a great outtake showing just how windy it was and why I  am holding my hair down in most of the pictures: