False Colette Peony Dress

After the dress it took ages, I believe I managed another record: to sew a winter dress with a minimum fabric. I had a small rest of 1m of dark-brown wool which I bought during the sales for 3 euros. After pre-shrinking it, I got to about 95cm. Originally, I wanted to use it with some other rests to make a mixed colours dress, but I liked its texture and wanted to make another basic dress.

The Colette Peony dress is something I was eyeing for some time, but after reflection, I do not think there is anything special on it to justify buying the pdf pattern. Therefore I decided to copy it based on the Burda Parisian dress.

The Burda Parisian dress was one of the first ones I have made a year ago, without a muslin, at that point of time. This time, knowing I could not allow myself to make any mistake due to the lack of fabric, I muslined everything properly, including the skirt and sleeves length.

I used an A skirt with darts on the back, as well as on the front. Therefore, I added the front darts on the bodice to match the skirt, and eventually decreased the size of the side darts. I also wanted the pockets, as it is something I often lack on my dresses.

Here is the picture showing how just I was on cutting out the fabric. I have to admit that I might have a few rests of the fabric, no larger than a few square centimeters.

The dress is fully lined: with a black cotton-silk on the bodice and black rayon on the skirt. On another wool dress (unblogged so far), as well as on my original Parisian dress I did not put any skirt lining and I feel the skirt tends to stick to my tights.

So there we go: the dress which in the end costs the price of Colette Peony dress :o)

Inspiration: Colette Peony

Pattern: Burda Parisian dress

Pattern changes: bodice adjustments, skirt

Technique: matching the darts

Fabric: dark brown wool, cotton-silk for bodice lining, rayon for skirt lining

Time to Complete: 3 weeks

Total Cost: 18 EUR