December is such a busy month for everyone, I've been caught up in the usual whirlwind of school nativity's, concerts and carol services, plus teaching at a few special events for Ministry of Craft, which has all meant not much sewing time for me. (Although a rather dodgy photo of me teaching did make it on to the Laura Ashley blog.)

I really wanted a new dress to wear for Christmas, and managed to carve out a few moments here and there to start, yesterday finally having a good block of time to get it finished...that is until I realised I'd made an epic mistake while cutting out....but I'll save the details of that for another day!
Feeling very cross with myself, I abandoned my first Christmas dress and cut out two more. I finished this one yesterday afternoon.





I've had this fabric for about 18 months, bought in Abakhan in North Wales. You can't really see from the photos (cursed midwinter in the north west!), but it is a lovely teal blue with cream and mustard flowers. A jersey knit, but a fairly stable one. I'd been wondering what to make with it, and considered a lady skater, but I wasn't convinced the knit could cope with the negative ease without the pattern distorting over my boobs. I wondered if it'd work with my basic bodice block, and it did!

Honestly, the whole dress was a bit of a make it up as I go along project, and although the final result is pretty and quite flattering, it's not really a Christmas Dress, so I wore it today instead. I think it is a nice everyday kind of dress....meanwhile it's back to trying to fix christmas dress number one, and wondering if I will have time to finish back up christmas dress number three just in case!