Making a dress - Brown striped JSK

Christmas holiday is a time for relaxing and stuffing myself silly with food however it is also a good time to sew!

A long time ago I made this lovely blue apron dress which I regularly wear for work as it is so cute and I thought it was time to make make another one but a bit more jsk-like.  Which means I fully lined it and sewed up the back of the skirt so I don't have to worry about wearing a underskirt any more.

So I dug out my old pattern from my shelf and started to prep my fabric.

Normally I would wash all my fabrics but I am once again using kimono fabric and unfortunately I forgot to jot down the fibre used to make this bolt so I decided against washing it and just steamed iron it to death.  I will be using a synthetic lining and from the crisp feel of the kimono fabric I have a feeling it is not natural so hopefully if I do need to wash it, it will not shrink.

This bolt came with a label but alas I don't know what it says so if you do let me know!

I started off with the lining as I had a lot of the material so if I made any mistakes I can make alterations.

And now to measure and cut my kimono bolt.  Which is always nerve racking....

So once I got over my hesitation I had the outer fabric cut and then I suddenly had a bodice.

With buttonholes!

Of course the next thing to tackle are the ruffles.

But I knuckled down and after an solid morning work I have it all sewed, gathered and attached to the skirt.

Then attached the skirt to the bodice and then attaching the lining to the skirt at the waist.

 This had to be done by hand which didn't take to long but there was a lot of fabric.

Finished

And here it is.

Yep that is one big bow!

I even dipped into my lace collection and added some detail to the bodice.

And the pockets as well as I thought they needed a little pick me up.

Oh and of course some more lace along the bottom.  This was the lace that I brought back in April 2017 when I went to Hong Kong.  

And I had to find some matching buttons for this jsk.  I went for something brass like since the dress is brown.

Conclusion

This project went relatively smoothly and with the overlocker certain things were a lot easier because I didn't have to worry about fraying.

I still have some material left so I might be able to squeeze a matching bolero jacket so fingers cross!