The making of the White Flowers tea dress

The White Flowers dress commenced with truly beautiful fabric - a black cotton embroidered thickly with off-white flowers. I bought it at Tessuti a couple of summers ago and I knew it would be a dress - I just had to find the right dress pattern.

Sewing it, however, proved to be a problem. The fabric, while soft, is densely woven. Pinning the pattern to it was impossible. Machine sewing it produced a popping sound when a needle went through it. I started with a denim needle, but the resulting big holes were unappealing so I switched to a sharper universal needle.

The bodice came together easily on the first day, but by then my fingers were toast from pushing all the pins into the fabric and so I was done.

I started the skirt the next day. I cut the full width of the fabric (as the embroidery was along the selvedge) which was 2.5 metres. The skirt is 27 inches long.

When I wore the Not Sorbetto wearable muslin dress for the first time I had a chance to assess what worked and what didn't. The top was great - I couldn't fault it except it could be a little shorter at the waist. But the skirt, as lovely as those four pleats are, tended to grab knickers and tights at the internal part of the pleat.

So a rethink of the pleating of the skirt was required. I decided to make knife pleats and have them directing away from the centre back and centre front. I spent an hour pinning, measuring, re-pinning and finally, basting the pleated skirt to the bodice. Then I tried it on for size.

My mum always told me to wear the shoes you were going to wear with the dress or skirt before determining the correct length and working out the fit. She was right.

I'm glad the length was perfect, because I didn't fancy taking the length from the top of the skirt after all that bloody pleating. So I finished off the waist, and turned to the side zipper because, let's face it. The hem was already done.

Experienced sewers will know what I'm about to undertake here. I did question my nuttiness at attempting a hand-picked zipper, I must admit. But this was a special dress, and I thought it would be worth it.

And oh - was it ever.

These photos were taken at my brother's wedding in Brisbane yesterday. It was a truly wonderful day. There was a massive thunderstorm in the morning, but by lunchtime it was clear and even a little sunny.

My mum loved my dress. My husband loved my dress. I loved my dress. No one else noticed my dress even though I'd told my aunties I'd made it myself.And that was OK because all eyes were on the bride. Her outfit was stunning. She was stunning!

I was cool, and very comfortable. The flowers on the dress kept my baby nephew distracted as I held him while his parents were busy getting married. And when I crashed from exhaustion in the hotel room hours later, the dress was extremely comfortable to pass out in until I had the energy to shower and go to bed properly.



And that adds up to a winning dress in my book.