Hawthorn and Pine

Hello long lost readers. I have a plethora of pretty dress in the pine forest photos for you today.

This is Colette's Hawthorn which I bought pretty much as soon as they released and have been mulling and plotting my own version ever since. From the beginning I jumped on the chambray bandwagon, inspired by Colette's own styling and the likes of Lauren  and Lauren. I'm telling myself it took so long because I was waiting for summer to make this....
I had the perfect chambray in my stash which I had been rubbing my hands together in glee over and delighting in my daydreams of the perfect dress. I traced the pattern and pulled out my fabric. There wasn't enough. No matter which way I wrangled the pattern pieces there wasn't enough. So instead I took advantage of living in a new place and tried out my local fabric shop- which is amazing by the way if you're ever in Limassol, Cyprus. They didn't have the perfect chambray but they had this oxford shirting/chambrayish stuff which I thought was pretty nice and would do for my first version.

 I made a quick muslin in a size 12 as I often find Colette patterns don't fit me well around the bust. I lowered the darts a little and added a bit at the waist as I wanted this to be a very easy, loose and airy dress to wear in my new 35 degree climate. Once I had made up the real version however I still think there is too much room under the bust. I'll do a SBA on the next one. I'm not that bothered by it though, it doesnt look great here but in real life it's fine and with a belt you wouldn't notice it.

Too much room under the boobs in this picture. 

 I really like this dress. It's comfy, and I think pretty stylish. I'm trying to break away from too much cutesy vintage styling these days, wear more solid colours, less print, go a bit more casual. I think this dress fits the bill nicely. I especially like it with this belt.

Back view complete with weird ankle twist.

 The dress was also really simple to put together, you know when you really enjoy the process of top stitching and making button holes that the sewing gods were on your side that day. It does help that on my new to me machine I have one of those cool button hole feet that pretty much does it all for you. Big news for a gal who has pretty much always sewn with old fashioned machinery.

 The buttons are also from new to me locla haberdashers who seems like he might have every sort of trim and zip colour in existence. Yes! They were 10 cents each and don't even look cheap so I count that as a bargain.

The weird snowflake effect at the bottom of the dress here is my attempt at some retouching!

 We took these photos on a walk on the Troodos mountains not far from our new house. I'm coming up here again at Christmas in my next long sleeved Hawthorn and a pair of boots. There will definitely be more of these babies on my horizon.