bianca dress | oliversfancy

double gauze bianca dress Well, it’s done folks. My lovely Bianca dress is all finished and oh so beautiful! I think it’s my favorite handmade item so far. Part of that has to do with this great pattern from Rae and the other part of it is due to this amazing fabric- double gauze from miss matatabi fabrics in Japan. I have seen fellow bloggers use double gauze for a while and wanted to try it, but the price tag has always deterred me. Enter one middle-of-the-night nursing session with Eliot, an awesome sale posted on IG, sleep deprivation, and I just HAD to buy some of this fabric. The next morning I had a bit of a scare wondering what I had bought in the middle of the night and put myself on restriction from etsy browsing during night-time feedings. But it was worth it when I got this lovely fabric in the mail. And really, the sale price was so good that even with shipping from Japan, this dress (not including lining) only cost me $27! Not bad for a custom-made Easter dress, I’d say.

double gauze bianca dress

Only problem now is that I want to buy all the double gauze! It is so heavenly to wear. Okay enough rambling about fabric purchases; on to the dress details…

Pattern: Upcoming Bianca Dress/Top from Made by Rae

Pattern Mods:

Followed directions to lower front facing 7/8″ based on my measurements (very important to check because it totally changes the fit!)
Added 4 inches to original length (what I believe would be 2 inches to the final version of the pattern) to make it knee length.
Added a white batiste lining: Now let me pause here for just a moment. I added a lining after the fact when I realized my double gauze was completely see-through (oops). The lining would have been fairly easy to add if I had done it while I was making the dress, but it was kind of a pain to do after the fact. I attached the skirt and bodice separately. The skirt is just a rectangle sewn down one side to make a tube, serged at the top and bottom hems, and then hand-sewn to the elastic casing. Bodice is machine-stitched at shoulder and arms seams but hand-stitched on all other seams- i.e. lots of hand stitching! It’s not the best stitching job (and that’s putting it nicely), but you can’t see it once the dress is on, and I figure this will be a hand-wash only dress so I don’t need to worry about the lining fraying or coming apart in the wash. For future reference though- check your garment for opacity before construction!

Fabric: As previously mentioned, Nano Iro double gauze from the Miss Matatabi etsy shop. (FYI I managed to squeak it out of 2 yards of fabric even with the added length)

Now that’s enough selfish sewing. I’m tired of editing pictures of myself- gets a bit awkward after a while. Plus, I have a lofty goal that all 4 of us will be in something handmade for Easter, so next week it’s KCW and clothes for the boys and then after that another Negroni shirt for the husband- fingers crossed for good naps and productive sewing!

So the sickies hit our house this week and the kids and I have been down for the count. I’m going to apologize in advance that all my pictures are IG pics. Just the way life is sometimes. So many projects brewing in my mind, and so little time to get them done! I am *almost* finished with my second Bianca– this one is going to be my Easter dress! I just have a teensy bit left on it and hope to finish that and get some pics for you by this weekend. Here’s a sneak peek from my IG feed (@oliversfancy). I took the plunge and cut into my Nano Iro double gauze! And its gonna be awesome!

I am also hoping to finish the binding on Oliver’s quilt this week so I can finally cross that project off my list! Can’t wait to show you the finished product. Btw did you know that quilt and myself made it into our local paper? Yep, I am now famous. 🙂 A reporter came to check out our quilt guild at the March meeting and ended up using my picture for the front of the article. Pretty cool. I ran out and got the last copy of the paper at a gas station and think I shall frame it in my craft room. Hey, my first time in print has to be special, right? Here’s a link to the article if you want to read it.

my attempt at a picture of the actual newspaper article.

Don’t forget, next week is Kid’s Clothes Week! I’ve been making all kinds of plans in my head and am getting antsy to begin. My goal is to have all my patterns prepped and fabric cut out by Monday morning so I can spent next week sewing. Here’s my IG capture of my new knits purchase…got some pretties from Girl Charlee in preparation for KCW. I also took the plunge and bought Dana’s shorts pattern since it came highly recommended from my sources. And last, but not least, I bought some stretch thread after Rae recommended it so highly. I’ll be sure to let you know how these all work out for me.

As I was writing this post, it unintentionally morphed into a WIP post…funny how blog posts take on a life of their own, huh? So I’m linking up over with WIP Wednesday at freshly pieced for the first time today.