Me-Made-May (and the heat!) had me going through my wardrobe recently and I dug out a few summer makes that I’d kinda forgotten about! That included my original Annie dress!

This pattern from Tessuti is a loose fit high neck sleeveless dress with an empire length bodice and gathered skirt. I’d never too keen on this particular neckline on me (I’m a cleavage kind of girl! 😂) but I wanted to give it a try! I loved the original version I made but it was a little too sheer for, you know, actually leaving the house in…

I wanted to give this style another go and I found the perfect fabric to do it in! I got this beyond gorgeous orange double gauze from Sew Me Sunshine. (And yes I know I said in my last post that that was the last of my fabric from that shop but I’d made this one before my Elma dress!). I’d originally intended to make another By Hand London Hannah dress but I felt I needed to do something else with it when I saw and felt the fabric in person!

So I started with the Annie dress as the base for my make. The original bodice is fully lined with the outer pieces featuring panels on each side. These aren’t “functional” in that they don’t offer any shaping – they’re there for design purposes only. I decided not use the outer bodice piece and just use the lining piece instead for both as I wasn’t planning on using the panels as a design feature.

I wanted ties instead of straps so I cut some long strips to make 4 3.5cm wide ties which were sewn into the same place as the straps.

For the skirt I opted to just use a rectangle of fabric rather than the shaped piece the pattern comes with. This was mostly for ease and mostly is I could make the most of the fabric I had! I used the original as a guide for how wide I wanted my skirt to be though and just made it as long as I could with the length of fabric I had.

I added in side seam pockets (of course!) and it was done!

(Please forgive the bra straps – I didn’t realise how awful they looked until afterwards! Note to self – only wear pretty bras you don’t mind being on display! 😂)

I made sure to add a label to back of this one otherwise I’d never know which way around it should go!

It’s a super comfy lounging around the house kind of dress – a specialty of mine since lockdown began! It’s already had lots of wears and will surely have many more before summer is over!

Also, it must seem like I only shop at Sew Me Sunshine! 🤦🏻‍♀️. I use lots of different stores but when I get a new haul from Sew Me Sunshine I always feel compelled to use them all straightaway! It helps me justify the buying of more fabric… 😂