Sustainable Fabric: Sewing With Tablecloths

I went to Disneyland Paris! I was so excited to go – I’ve never been before! We went for one day and I had just the best time. Of course, I had to wear handmade so I chose to wear something comfortable so I could spend all day on my feet and feel cool and comfy all day. I chose to wear my second version of the Sew Liberated Metamorphic Dress.

Like my first version of this dress, I used an old tablecloth that I dyed myself for the top layer of the dress. I picked up some old tablecloths at Sew Up North in 2017 and this one I dyed using a Dylon Navy Blue machine pod. It was easy to do and I chucked a few other things into the machine to dye at the same time. I think because of the weight of all the things I was dyeing at the time, this didn’t come out a true navy blue but more of a French blue, I like the colour so I’m not mad about it!

I am really thrilled with the blue and think it looks beautiful made up into this dress. For this version I took one inch out of the centre neckline as it gapes a bit on my first version, it’s a small thing that doesn’t matter really but I do prefer the fit of this one. I have made the change to the pattern piece so that any versions I make in the future have this small adjustment.

For the under layer of this dress, I chose to use some beautiful Ikat fabric I found in my local Boyes for £6 per metre. I think this might be my only fabric purchase so far this year! The Ikat is light and airy and the blue goes so well with the blue of the tablecloth. I am really happy with the finished result but I don’t think I would go for two such high-contrast layers if I make it again. This is because the white of the under layer can be seen around the neckline of the blue layer which looks quite obvious if I wear a dark top underneath it. This isn’t a problem I have with my green version as the layers are so similar in colour.

I had intended to flip my dress around halfway through the day so that I had some pictures of each side while we were at Disneyland BUT in all the excitement I totally forgot about dresses and blog pictures and just got caught up in the magic of the day! I have taken a quick snap of the other side just to show you what it looks like – can you believe this is the same dress?!

I have been wearing this dress tons, I love how versatile it is – I can wear it with different t-shirts underneath and wear it with either side showing so I am finding I can style it SO MANY different ways!