Clare chose the VikiSews Leoncia dress to wear to the wedding.  We began the planning process a few months prior, although the dress didn’t actually get finished until the week before we left!

This is the line drawing for the dress. It’s all cut on the bias. Clare and I had done some formal dress try-on sessions at the local shops some months earlier where we’d determined that bias cut worked nicely on her, but it really needed me to sew it to grade up through the hips. In the end I cut size 2 (Australian size 6) for the bodice, and graded it up to size 4 (Australian size 8) through the hips, which was very straightforward.  I bought the 162-168cm height range of the pattern.

The fabric is crepe backed polyester satin, bought on considerable discount at Lincraft (of all places!) with mint green bemsilk lining. The blue fabric in the photo is the poly satin I used for her Marla dress.

The dress was actually fairly straighforward to make, especially because there are no closures, as it slips on due to the flexibility of the bias. The spaghetti straps that hold the entire dress up have sliders to make them adjustable. If I sewed this again I would move them in a little – the straps ended up being a bit wide-set on Clare’s narrower shoulders.

Before I attached the sleeves I had Clare try on the dress. It actually looked really cute on her without them! It wouldn’t be at all difficult to adjust the pattern to make it sleeveless. Nevertheless, we continued on with adding the sleeves.

I had complicated things slightly by deciding to fully line the dress. The upper front is fully lined, but the back neckline is finished with a facing. I cut the skirt pattern pieces out in lining fabric and attached the back pieces to the back facing, and the front skirt piece to the upper front self-fabric lining, and then continued on with construction pretty much as per the instructions. It all worked out okay!

When Clare tried it on, she found that her arm movement was a bit restricted. I let out the bicep area of the sleeves, which improved matters considerably. Then we discovered that she really needed to wear the dress hiked right up to her armpits, with the straps set fairly short in order to provide a really good danceable range of movement. Double-sided tape helped to keep the bodice in the right spot! She accidentally found out if she tucked the sleeves inside the dress she could wear it sleeveless and you couldn’t even tell there were sleeves inside – an unexpected versatility bonus.

When I started sewing the dress I sewed over a pin and completely threw off the timing of my machine and jammed it. Yikes! I sent the Pinnock off for repairs, and switched to sewing on the girls’ machine, a little Bernette. Once I got the hang of things it sewed quite nicely. I used the overlocker to finish seam allowances. I used an old Big4 pattern to sew up a matching pouch for Clare to carry her phone etc in. It wasn’t my best work, but it was fine on the day!

Anyway, Clare looked fabulous! The dress turned out beautifully, was comfortable to wear (other than having to apply double-sided tape to the top edges of the bodice) and she received many compliments. It turned out that it was highly danceable too!