Happy bank holiday Monday folks (in the UK)! Hope you’re all enjoying the day off

This “cold shoulder ” trend seems to be big this summer! I quite like that it’s showing a bit of skin without being super flashy/ fleshy (plus I have upper arm issues).

Fellow blogger Sil at Mauve Cloud Studio made one a little while back which you can see here which I thought was gorgeous. It made me want to try this style out too!

I opted to just majorly alter a current pattern I had rather than buy a new one/ draft from scratch just for speed more than anything else.

I chose to use my Tilly and the Buttons Bettine dress as a base for it because I felt the simple silhouette would be easily adaptable without anything messing around with darts etc.

So for alterations, I lengthened and widened the sleeves – dropping the armhole down by about 5cm and lengthening by 3cm. I opted for a 6cm width shoulder strap and drew out half an oval shape from there as my cut out to where it would sit over the shoulder. (If you’re doing this yourself, don’t forget to include seam allowances!).  I’d already shortened the bodice from when I’d made a Bettine previously to how I liked it. The front and back pieces match, including the new cutouts, the only differences being the necklines. 

The skirt was kept almost the same, I just straightened the bottom half of the side seams rather than have the tulip shape. You could easily just keep it exactly the same though. 

This is the finished front bodice pattern!

I used this awesome striped cotton jersey I got online from Girl Charlee on a whim. It was a bit too lightweight for some other projects I had in mind but I think the drape suited this one!

Sewing up was straightforward enough but fiddly! The fabric moved a lot and I was constantly trying to get all the stripes to match up! I chose to bind the neckline and shoulder cut outs with knit binding (AKA strips of the jersey) which I used to create a simple neat finish.

Here’s the result! (I’m on holiday in Seville in these photos just so you know. England didn’t suddenly get hot and sunny…).

Stripes and cut outs! I’m so on trend for S/S 16, LOL!