Tropical Sunshine

We had three of four dresses designed, and were brainstorming about what the fourth ought to look like. There was the Sweet Darling, which was all soft pinks and yellows; the Stripes Ahoy!, with its blue and white stripes; and the Mint Vivacity, which was undeniably green.

So, the question was what color we ought to make the fourth dress. We didn’t want it to look just like the rest, but also didn’t want to pick something outrageous.

That night, as I was going to bed, it hit me: a clear, tropical blue! And then a warm, bright yellow to pair with it. And, of course, since the colors were the main inspiration for this dress’s design, it made sense to sew up a color-block bodice, rather than more traditional stripes.

The next step was to find the fabric. This isn’t always as easy as it sounds, because sometimes my brain imagines very specific sorts of colors, and my favorite fabric stores simply don’t have an infinitely large selection! Fortunately, most stores have a pretty good range of solid colors in cotton, which is exactly what I wanted.

The pattern for this dress was a little bit intimidating, since I ended up needing over 20 pieces!(Most other dresses have about five or six.) However, Melody put numbers on all of them and laid them out neatly; then I just sewed them all together, assembly-line style. It worked really well, and actually went together surprisingly quickly.

Then we cut a lining out of super-soft cotton sateen and put it in; Melody tried it on to make sure we had the zipper placement marked correctly and didn’t want to take it off because it was so comfortable!

Then, at last, it was time for the bow. I knew almost right away it had to be a large, flat number; and what better place to put it than across the large front yellow stripe?

We’re very pleased with the finished dress; everything about it, from matching the little pieces together at the corners to the pleated skirt, came out far better than we imagined (and by now you know we have very high standards for quality!) And to top it all off, it’s disarmingly cute. It’s a fabulous way to finish out the Spring/Summer 2010 line!

Melinda