Been busier than any number of busy things you could mention (the devil in a high wind; an English oven at Christmas; a bag of fleas) and so sewing has taken a backish seat, but I have managed to make a few more Seamwork Veronicas (the panel version for subscribers).

Today I managed to take pictures of one of them that’s been in process for a couple weeks (this is actually a very quick pattern to sew, it takes a couple weeks if you only get ten minutes a day to sew in …).

Forgive the foreshortened perspective … here’s the bodice:

The pockets:

The waistband:

More topstitching:

The back shirring:

And the whole back:

You may be saying, “huh, Erin, I don’t remember the Veronica dress looking quite like that” so here is a (not-exhaustive) list of the things I have altered:

• added 2 inches to the center front and back skirt so that I could get more fullness
• changed the pockets from the kangaroo kind to actual scoop pockets in the skirt side panels
• omitted the center back seam in the bodice, skirt, and waistband and just cut everything on the fold
• did a FBA (full butt adjustment) on the center back to keep the skirt from being shorter in the back than the front
• shortened the bodice a bit to lessen the blousiness
• finished the hem with a 3″ bias band
• finished the neck and sleeves with bias binding
• changed the back channel elastic to elastic shirring (with this very nice Seamwork tutorial)
• scooped the neck about 1.5 inches

As you may have already figured out, my topstitching is not what you would call precise, but I am calling it wabi-sabi and retiring from the ring. (It was fun to do and I think it livens up the joint.)

The fabric is a cotton/silk? blend (maybe?) very very very lightweight not-gray-not-blue-somehow-both chambray that I’m sure I bought from FabricMartFabrics a while back. I would dig through my email receipts to confirm but 1) I’m lazy and 2) everything on FMF sells out in less than a week so there’s no utility in doing so; I can’t link to it. The fabric is a bit sheerer than I expected but I only own all of the slips in the northern hemisphere so we’re good on that front. (And back.)

Considerable alterations aside, this is a very comfortable dress for summer, and I’m all set to make at least, oh, three or four more until I get tired of it. It’s just so darn easy, both to make and to wear! (I’ve already made two others, both in seersucker, that I haven’t photographed yet.)

Next step for this dress is to do a version that has panels in the back as well as the front … and maybe even a version with a flat collar?