Washi Dress

I am currently on holidays and what a perfect time to make a nice comfy little frock.  I wore it today for a trip to the movies and lunch. Highly recommend it for sitting and eating. I realised my wardrobe is lacking some smock style tops and dresses.  With the weather cooling slightly here in Brisbania it is the time of the year where dresses with leggings or tights are your best bet. Maybe throw in a cardie if the weather plummets to 20 degrees for the first half of the morning.  

I found the Washi super easy to make. I decided to go without the front feature and just do the rounded neck.  The only silly mistake I made with this was when I cut it out. I didn't actually notice the instructions for cutting it out and just went along as I do with any pattern.  It wasn't until I went to cut out the back bodice piece that I noticed the instructions to attach the pattern piece to the back skirt section. Baa-baowwm.  Well the skirt piece was already cut out so I simply added a bit of length to the back bodice section so I could attach the piece of material to the skirt. Seemed to work out.  I guess that's just the way things go sometimes when you have been sewing a long long time you don't always read the instructions first.  I also managed to lose the back facing piece. Lucky I hadn't taken my recycling down to the bins because I found it in the bottom of my kitchen bin.  

The only issue with the finished product is probably that the neck line doesn't sit completely flat. It's not too bad, I can just feel it pushing forward when I'm sitting down making it a bit gapey in parts. But probably not that noticeable. 

I realised after I uploaded the photo, the unfortunate position of the cat planter behind my legs.
The version to the left is my real kitty and her cat grass.

This was my first foray into shirring. I did try it years ago and was very unsuccessful in that attempt. My Janome manual doesn't even give you shirring instructions. I was going to go on line and check out a tutorial but just went ahead with a practice piece of material going from the pattern instructions.  My shirring lines are not very straight in parts. Fortunately that won't be noticeable given that the material has a pattern. Well that's what I'm telling myself anyways.   

I shall definitely be giving this pattern a go again.