Ultraviolet dress

This dress was built entirely around the fabric, which I bought off my friend Amy from her shop Craft and Thrift. I really liked the fabric, and when there was just 2 metres left, I went for it without any fixed pattern plans and this is the result.

The fabric is African Wax, but it doesn’t have quite as much of that typical stiffness African Wax usually has, and it also feels a bit drapier and smoother, so it’s possible that this may have some synthetic content (I seem to remember it was listed as 100% cotton, but I may be remembering that wrong. She does have some rayon mix african wax in her shop now, so I guess that’s a thing!). The direction of the peacock ran horizontally from selvedge to selvedge which I wasn’t expecting, but actually turned out well matched to the pattern.

For this, I decided to lengthen the Paprika Patterns Ultraviolet tee to dress length, as that pattern works well for not disturbing large prints. I was constrained by the width of the fabric and lengthened both front and back pieces by as much as I could fit into the fabric, keeping the curve at the bottom the same.

Apart from that, there isn’t really much to report, the pattern is straightforward, and adding the length didn’t really change anything. The hem did turn out a wee bit funny at the edges where the two curves it sticks out a bit. You can see it in the pictures here, though I don’t think you would notice it if you weren’t looking, because you’re just dazzled by the peacock!