The intro of this post was going to be different. It was going to be about how this is dress is not a timely make. It’s midsummer where I live and floral dresses—especially ones with sleeves—belong in early spring. It’d go on to talk about how I’ve struggled with managing my sewing queue and keeping up a good pace the past few months—why, I’m not sure yet. An active summer social life? Watching more movies and cooking more dinners and doing more YouTube yoga? Maybe.

But instead of delving into possibly existential topics, I’m going to talk about how I only just realized that Fabric.com shipped me the wrong fabric for this Colette Laurel dress. And I made the thing without even realizing it. I’ve never been the most observant person, but I don’t think I’m completely oblivious. (I hope.) Here, you be the judge:

Months ago, after going back and forth about which Kaffe Fasset floral to buy, I finally settled on this one. What I got was this one. I mean, a floral’s a floral, right? They all look alike?! She says with a crazed look in her eye. Luckily, I really love the mistake fabric. Just like my parents love my little brother. (Just kidding, mom. We know you wanted three kids all along. Wink wink.)

Fabric-confusion aside, this dress was really fun to sew.

The size 8 muslin I sewed was pretty roomy, so I sewed a straight 6 this time around. I could get the muslin on and off easily without unzipping it, so I decided to omit the zipper on this dress. I also ended up interlining the fashion fabric with cotton batiste to eliminate any transparency. This was my first time interlining, and it went relatively smoothly save for a little bit of fabric pooling in the front.

Here’s the laundry list of changes I made to the pattern and during construction:

• Slashed the pattern at the neck to fix a slightly gaping neckline using a Fashion Sewing Blog tutorial (Colleen G. Lea you are a goddess)
• Lowered the bust darts by 1/2″
• Lowered the back darts by 1″
• Added 2″ at the lengthen/shorten lines
• Widened the seam allowance a bit at the natural waist for more definition
• Sewed a 1.5″ hem instead of 2″
• Eliminated the back zipper
• Sewed a keyhole back using a tutorial from the free Laurel extras PDF download

The pattern calls for more hand sewing than I’m used to, with slipstitches to secure the bias tape at the sleeves and a catch-stitched hem. I’m slowly but surely coming around to appreciate hand stitching. It’ll be a slow burn, I’m sure. My favorite detail on the whole shebang is the keyhole back, which serves the dual purpose of looking cute and making it slightly easier to get in and out of the dress since I made it sans zipper. Form and function wins out!

I love my little mistake dress, but I know I should’ve gotten around to making it earlier. Has anyone else been sewing seasonally inappropriate stuff? Tell me all your dirty sewing secrets.

P.S. I’m still going to wear the hell out of this dress on summer days below 80º F. B-)