Anyone else ready for a vacation? I bought this fabric in Honolulu last year without any clue what I’d do with it! I don’t even know what it’s made out of lolz. But when I had the opportunity to pick out a pattern from the upcoming Fibre Mood issue, I was immediately drawn the the Charlotte dress and knew this ~tropical vibes~ pattern would be perfect! Check out the other amazing patterns at the link party here!

This was my first time making a Fibre Mood pattern! I’ve seen a few other sewing bloggers make their patterns, so I was looking forward to the whole process. Overall, the pattern was relatively simple to follow, and I was surprised by how easy it was to achieve the ruffled hem! I am extremely *meh* regarding gathers, but this was a million times easier, even though the ruffle effect here is quite chic, if you ask me. The paper pattern did take a marathon of cutting and taping to assemble, but maybe I should finally start sending my patterns to the copy shop instead of creating a mess of paper bits on my living room floor.

Changes: i ended up having to decrease the waist by about 1.5 inches as it just didn’t sit right on my torso (I probably could have gone down a size but I wanted to give myself room just in case!). I also did short sleeves instead of the 3/4 length sleeve as I was short on fabric. Lastly, I removed around 2 inches from the length of the skirt because I’m shorter than average and almost always end up hemming skirts higher, but given the ruffle hem, I knew I’d have to do this at the time of cutting the fabric rather than at the end.

I sent these photos to my mom and she loves the dress, but pointed out that I needed red heels to go with my outfit and I 100% agree – anyone got any good links?

In other news, I am soooo ready to wear this dress to my favorite local Houston tiki bar, or even better – fly back to Hawaii and wear it while walking along the shore. Hope everyone is staying safe out there!

Cheers!

Danica