Racer Back Roses

It’s been a stressful time for me and my family but more so for my sister. A planned Christmas trip became a sad event with the passing of my father and all the funeral arrangement took up what was left of her holiday. She is now back at work and being a busy time for her, she is running all over the place and hardly have any time to relax. So being the kind little brother, I decided to make her something to wear and to ease her mind off her stressful life.

I had this idea for quite a while to make a racer like dress but overlaid with an off the shoulder pattern so being in an experimental mood, I decided to try it out. With a basic bodice drawn out, I started out by deciding where the garment will sit on the shoulder and consequently the racer back pattern. All the lines were drawn out on the main pattern before tracing them out again as individual patterns. Doing it this way helped me visualise how the pattern will look like with all the pattern pieces together.

I initially started out by drawing facings for the dress but with only a metre of Liberty print fabric, I quickly realised that I wouldn’t have enough to make a dress. My mother then suggested that I just sew bias binding on the edges and this actually work to the advantage of the dress as the binding highlighted the pattern of the dress amid the busy print.

The racer back details is a new addition to her wardrobe but with the off the shoulder overlap, this dress maintains a tinge of conservatism; just in case if she wants to wear it to work.

As there was not a lot of fabric left, the skirt of the dress had to sit above the knee. Call me stingy or thrifty but I’m quite amazed at what you can achieve with just 1 meter of fabric.

This is garment 1 of 3 done. As her birthday is coming up soon, I hope that the garments I have/will make for her may bring her some cheer to an otherwise sad time.