Little Blue Dress

It's almost mid-November already and I was hoping that my merino dresses would be put aside and wait for next winter... Silly me! It's still cold and I've been living in my merino dresses. I guess spring just decided to skip New Zealand this year! I hope that summer will be stunning to make up for the shity spring we are having now!

Anyway, in winter I prefer close-fitting dresses - it means I can wear more layers to keep myself warm. I decided I needed a simple, lengthened T-shirt dress in my wardrobe and then found perfect merino piece bought over a year ago at Levana in Levin. The pattern I used is Tonic Tee by SBCC and it used to be free to download - now you have to subscribe to receive Tonic Tee and Tonic 2. Now that I think of it I might have used Tonic 2 as the base of my pattern! I need to take proper sewing notes as I can't remember what I made few months ago.

Obviously I lengthened it as much as my fabric would allow. It ended up being too long for my liking so I cut off like 20 cm... Unfortunately I didn't measure anything and just kind of eyeballed where to cut. Guess what? It got so short it wouldn't be decent anywhere, especially not in the office! I had to  use the cut-off piece and make it into a band to make the dress longer.  To make the fit of the dress better I had to take it in around the waistline and then taper the bottom a bit more. I made the neckline deeper as well.

It's one of those very basic dresses but I ended up wearing it quite a lot in winter months. Combined with a black jacket/cardi, slip and thick black tights, this dress was pretty good in the office. And what's most importatnt, it kept me really warm!