Vogue 9625: simple sundress in gorgeous Swedish fabric

For this project I have used some beautiful Scandinavian fabric from Yulki's Home Décor. I love Scandinavian fabric as much as I love Japanese fabric - such vibrant colours and playful prints.
Yulki's Home Decor is an on-line store based in Hobart in beautiful Tasmania, selling fabrics, tablecloths, cushions and offering curtain making services. They stock a beautiful range of fabrics, which though on the pricier side are definitely very high quality and they are 150cm wide so you do get a lot of fabric per metre. Also, they  offer free postage with Australia which is a huge selling point for me when I'm doing on-line shopping. And my Swedish friends tell me that Marimekko and Spira fabrics are expensive in Sweden too, so I think the prices are very competitive.



The hardest part of this offer was picking a fabric, because there were so many beautiful prints to choose from:

L to R: Marimekko,  Spira, Marimekko & Spira

In the end I picked Mustard Vilma by Swedish Spira fabrics which is a 100% cotton with a weight similar to a heavy drill or canvas. I pre-washed in cold water and line dried, and there was only a small amount of shrinkage but thankfully no loss of colour at all unlike my recent disappointment with the navy blue cotton sateen. After washing the fabric softened quite a lot so it's the perfect weight for garment making.

The next hardest bit was picking a project - I think curtains from this fabric would look fabulous in my living room with it's white walls and dark timber floor. But I decided to go with a dress because I hate sewing curtains and because it's summer and a colourful dress is exactly what I need right now.

I chose to make a simple sun dress with a full skirt to show off the print to it's fullest advantage because it's a pretty large scale print. I used Vogue 9625 which is from 1998 and is now of course OOP. I've made this pattern once before in my pre-blogging days as well as making a few skirts so I knew it would fit without doing a muslin (or risk ruining this beautiful fabric). Luckily I had written on the pattern envelope that I needed to shorten the bodice by 2.5cm. I made view B, the red version, without sleeves:

The pattern has a side zip which normally I hate in a dress because I find the top of the zipper tape sticks into my underarm flesh in an irritating way but was perfect for this fabric because it saved me having to pattern match in the centre back. I left off the hook and eye at the top of the zipper though, because I can never seem to be able to do it up myself. The bodice is fully lined so the neckline and armhole seams are neatly finished:

The pattern has an inset waistband, which I cut on the waistband grain to make a feature of it and again to avoid having to pattern match (are you sensing a theme here?). It was only after I had finished the dress that I realised that I should have put some white piping in the waistband seams to make it stand out more, but I think it looks good enough not to worry about undoing it now!

The pattern is a simple box pleat skirt with a flat centre front and back, so it's not too puffy but still has a nice full skirt. The design of the pleats isn't as clever as the previous Vogue pleated skirt I made recently but this one certainly used up a lot less fabric than that skirt:

And after all my aversion to pattern matching, I think I did a pretty good job on the sides of the skirt even though the skirt pieces are cut in an a-line shape and the hem is dipped a bit - it sort of still lines up in a way although the ovals aren't exactly matched:

And you'll note I had to venture outside to take these photos despite my neighbours all having a good sticky beak because this dress just blended in too well with the wallpaper in my sewing room where I normally take my photos! 

So overall, I love this dress and I particularly love this fabric. If you're in the market for some Scandinavian fabrics definitely check out Yulki's Home Decor and support an Australian business while you're filling your stash with lovely fabrics.


Note: I received the fabric used for this project free of charge, but all opinions are my own.