Banana Carousel Dress - Complete!

It's is finished!  This poor old dress has been languishing on my dress form for months as my sewing drive just tailed off.  Last week however I made a conscious effort to get back into it and gave myself a deadline of getting it finished before our little holiday to visit the parents.  I really am pleased with it, it really looks like my original doodle and it keeps some of the inspiration of the Modcloth dress even if it isn't exact.

Modcloth Inspiration Shot

I have kept the tabs, though bigger, and the piping and the pattern I used is really similar in the end, the main difference from the original being that it is more loose fitting in the bodice with gathers top and bottom rather than sewn in two pieces like the Modcloth one.  I am really happy with my fabric choices too.  It took so long to match the boarder print but I think this happy banana yellow is really good.

Back View

I bought the huge metal zip as I really wanted to do an exposed zipper as I have seen them around a lot and quite like them plus I think it adds a bit more 'cool factor' to what could be quite a girly dress.  I used the piping around the top of the boarder and on the back as I only had enough boarder fabric for the front of the dress and I think it needed the piping on the back to stop it looking plain.  Plus I had to take a huge chunk of fabric out of the back, I seem to have a very narrow back on this pattern and I took 3cm on each side (!) out to make sure the waist band was nice and fitted.

 Closeup of the easiest zip ever!

Sweet little strawberry buttons!

To make the skirt I just measured my boarder print that became the width and then I measured a dress I already had which was the length I wanted and that became my skirt!  It was very easy and it was the best way to use my boarder print, just to make a rectangle skirt and gather it at the waist band.  The piping round the boarder does make the skirt poof out a fair bit when I wear it but I am hoping it will tame down a bit once I have washed it and the piping softens a little.   

So what do you think?  I really like the circle neckline and I am sure I will use this pattern again.

The Banana Carousel Dress - Planning

I have had the idea in my head fr this dress for a while now.  In fact since I saw this wonderful dress on Modcloth I have wanted to make my own.

Modcloth

I am not sure it is even on the site any more but I saved the picture and continually looked at it.  I love the red piping, the tabs and the carousel print.  I found a pattern pretty easily which I thought would work really well and snapped it up along with red piping and a big metal zipper as I thought about doing an exposed zipper right down the back.

New Look 6864

 The black dress and the floral one on the far right are perfect for the circle neckline and waistband I want.  Then I started to look for carousel print material.  Here I hit a massive snag.  I just could not find anything anywhere that was both carousel, or as my family call them, golden gallopers AND had the same red/yellow/beige tones as the original dress.  I knew I wouldn't find an exact match but I did want to keep the original tones of the dress. 

The nearest I could find was this on Spoonflower but it was just too costly to pay for it, pay for postage and pay customs too.  (I looked at A LOT of websites!)  I started widening my search to circus themed and found some cute Cath Kidston fabric but it was still expensive.  I then set up an ebay search to alert me if anything with 'carousel fabric' came up and up popped just under a metre of this very cute boarder print.

My lovely border print and Kona Banana

It was the right colour and had actual horses on it rather than just circus but it was a border rather than full fabric but I decided this could work and snapped it up for a couple of quid.  Then the second search began fr a main fabric which would match the border and my bright red piping.  I looked at a lot of beige and cream fabrics and considered some dobby gauze but I wasn't sure I would wear a cream dress that much as it is not a very practical colour.  I then spotted some 'apricot' fabric on ebay which I thought matched the border but when it arrived I didn't like it.  (This then got dyed purple and became my Amazing 8 Hour Christmas Dress.) 

After seeing the apricot I decided I would rather have a pale yellow main dress and browsed the Kona cottons which I had seen recommended on the blogosphere.  I found Kona Banana, fell in love and that was it!  I rarely have to put so much time and effort into finding materials for a dress so this was all quite new to me.

Now on to the sewing!