OMG, I love green!!

 
I love green! Last summer I bought on sale quite a lot of coupons at TOTO soldes. I had picked that green one because it was viscose (I love viscose, it's so soft). But I was not entirely sure about the shade of green because it was really bright. But I was so right to follow my instinct!

I love that dress. It's flowy, light and happy.

Here is my inspiration, it's a ZARA dress with some kind of a knot at the front. I guess the fabric is jersey. I was looking for a dress or a top to make with one of my favorite pattern book that I spent hours looking at but never know quite what to make with it :

Pattern magic by Tomoko Nakamichi. It's full of interesting designs and if you already know how to make patterns it's really easy to use. I used that page to figure out how to copy the ZARA dress.

Of course the design was not exactly the same, "sigh", I seem to long for difficulty! But I think that I did good. The knot at the front is not exactly the same but it looks good.

Mine is not as twisted, but I like it. If the dress is still in store when I go back to France I will definitively have a look at the inside!

Here is how I did it:

I didn't want any visible seem (of course, why make something easy?). So I opened the middle front until the spot where I wanted the knot to be. Then after MUCH consideration I opened the dress perpendicularly. That was the scary part!

Then I stitched one side, leaving only a small opening on the side, and passed the other panel through that opening and stitched that part very closely to create pleats. Is that clear ?

 I don't think you can see the seam at the front.

I used an interesting method to attach the facing. 

First I stitched the whole dress except the shoulders.

Then I created one facing for the front and one for the back part of the dress. I attached them to the neckline and the armhole. Then I stitched the shoulders of the dress. Opened the seamed with the iron. Slipped that under the facings (see the picture with my fingers :-)). Turned one edge of the facings inside, and carefully slipped stitched by hand.

Et voilà, a beautiful finish, it look as good as the outside!

I also added pockets. I even used some cotton ribbon from my purple coat to strengthen them. I never do that! I am improving myself, good girl.

I love this dress so much, I think the pictures don't do it justice. Maybe I should also buy a new camera, my pictures are a bit blurry no?

I didn't take any pictures with heels, it would look so good with it! Don't you think it deserves colorful shoes, pink, yellow or even golden ones? Ooooh what a good idea!

Since yesterday afternoon I am taking a break from sewing, the weather suddenly took a turn to super hot, before that I sewed like crazy, but couldn't take any pictures because it was too cold to wear a light dress or shorts outisde. Ha, the pleasures of German weather...

Anyway, now that the sun is here I will try to take picture of everything I did, fingers crossed!

Cheers.