The Berry picking dress

Smart doggy. She can tell there's a loooong story coming up about the making of another dress. So here it is. Remember this dress? A few days after I finished it I was picking strawberries and got all tangled up in some bushes. Note to self: think again before wearing chiffon while gardening.

 I'm not much into dungarees or overalls so I decided to go for a sturdy remake of the dress and wear the chiffon one only on ladylike occasions. Since most of the fruits we're growing in our kitchen garden are red, making a red cotton dress seemed like the most sensible choice. Not that I can spill red currants or raspberries totally unnoticed, but it never hurts to pick a  forgiving colour and busy print for garden jobs.

We had an extraordinary summer, so there was very relaxed hand basting in the sun. I shortened the skirt by six inches and changed the front neckline to a deep v-neck. The dress was fully lined and I hemmed the skirts with contrasting bias tape.

 I made the red bias tape for the lining following the continous bias tape tutorial on the Colette Patterns blog.

The hems were seamed by hand on yet another sunny day in the garden.

The finished hems.

Inside out.

Photobomb!

Someday I will find that tripod....