Brocade dress

This one started with a vintage dress pattern I got from an old woman Haynes Lane Collector's Market - a great place to go if you like sifting through dusty and precarious piles of old toys, records and haberdashery. It looks very classically 60s, but I have a feeling it might be later because it was with another pattern in the same size and a similar style that was dated 1972- the 60s had a bit of a long acid comedown fashion-wise.

I'd had some brocade fabric I was keen to get used up - it was a bargain bin thing I'd bought ages ago. Laying out the pattern pieces it quickly became apparent I didn't have enough fabric, so I had to improvise and use another tiny remnant for the yoke. Together, the colours looked a bit suburban sofaish, so they fell victim to my dyeing obsession.

Even with the extra fabric, I had to be a bit devious to squeak the pattern pieces out of only 1x1.5 metres, cutting into seam allowances and changing the shape a bit - there were only the tiniest of scraps left at the end, and there was no way I could match up the pattern along the seams. As though things weren't complicated enough, as I was sewing I noticed a horrible bleached bit down the middle.

It looked worse in real life, and I despaired for a bit and put the project away - but after a while I reconciled myself to it and carefully painted the colour back in with more fabric dye.I didn't mind the finished dress, but it needed something, so I braved embroidery for the first time in a long while, working with two strands of copper metallic thread that tangled constantly to do the outlines, then filling them in with the real stuff. I did it mostly on the bus, enabling me to experience all the possible variations of "My Grandma used to embroider/sew/crochet/do things with string" type conversations in terms of ages, technical knowledge and creepiness levels. 

I'm really pleased with how my first attempt at an invisible zip at the back came out, so will try and get a pic of that too at some point.