Off to market with the Emery dress

Things are a bit quiet on the sewing front around these parts this week - my machine is booked in for a service so I'm focussing on the knitting part of the outfit I'm planning for the Outfit Along instead. I had a bit of a disaster with it at the weekend and I'm not the speediest knitter in the world, so not sure if I'm going to get it done in time, but I'm giving it a go! In the meantime, I've got a dress that I finished last week to show you. Here's a shiny new Christine Haynes Emery dress...

This is my third version (version one here, and two here), so I don't have too much new to say about this one. Like my last Emery, this is view A without the bow. I'll get round to making one with the bow at some point, because I do love a bow, but I didn't think it would look quite right on this busy print.

Speaking of the print, this is Alexander Henry Market Stalls - I managed to snap up the last 3 metres at a bargain price from Fabric Yard (they're having a sale at the moment if you fancy a bit of fabric shopping...)!

It might not surprise you to know that I bought this a couple of months ago, just as Sew Dolly Clackett was coming to an end and my blog reader was full of beautifully bright and patterned dresses, which made me want to buy all the colourful fabric, and this fit the bill completely. I'm glad I snapped it up when I did, it's really fun and cheery, the market stalls are cute (there's tiny bunting in there!) and it's perfect for a nice summer dress.

I used the same alterations as in my previous versions (an inch added to the bodice length, and a smaller hem than in the instructions), and it feels fine when I'm wearing it, but looking at these photos it doesn't seem to fit quite as well as my other versions as there are a few wrinkles around the bodice. I think this might just be down to the fabric - this is a quilting cotton and it is a bit crisper and not quite as soft as the beach huts fabric I used last time, and obviously the Liberty lawn I used for my first version was even softer than that. Or it may just be that my posture isn't as good here - entirely possible! I'm pretty sure it's not that I've shrunk (I'm too fond of food to do that!), because I took my measurements again recently, and my other Emerys still fit nicely. I'm not going to loose sleep over it though, it feels fine when I'm wearing it and I've been told it looks nice, so it's all good as far as I'm concerned.

You might have spotted that I used a normal zip instead of an invisible zip again on this one - I've got a bit of a love/hate thing going on with invisible zips at the moment, which is currently more on the side of hate due to one breaking on me recently (more on that another time). I'll get back to loving them again soon, but I think in some ways I prefer normal zips on a casual dress like this.

I didn't have enough material to do any proper pattern matching, other than across the back of the bodice, but I tried to make sure that the horizontal lines matched up at each of the seams so that things didn't look too messy.

I think that's all I've got to say about this one - it's a happy dress to wear, and luckily I finished it just in time to wear in this lovely sun that we're enjoying at the moment. What's everyone else working on this week?