Sheer By Hand London Hannah dress

I’ve been a bit obsessed with the By Hand London Hannah since I made my first one and when I saw this fabric from New Craft House I knew it would be the perfect match. It’s very sheer so I thought about lining it however I’ve done that with a few white dresses before and realised I don’t wear white a lot, so I thought if I made it sheer I could always add a colourful slip underneath if I was bored of wearing white. For this one I just bought a slip from M&S which annoyingly I can’t dye because it has nylon in it but I’ll probably make an Ogden Cami hack (True Bias) when I get round to it, I’m thinking in bright yellow or orange.

As for the dress itself, I really took my time over it as I wanted to do the fabric justice so there are a few little features I’m quite proud of. I french seamed the whole thing including the sleeves. I also used satin bias binding on the neckline. There was some careful pattern placement of the skirt piece so I could preserve this beautiful frayed edge – I obviously didn’t hem it but I did stitch a line close to the edge of the fray just to make sure it doesn’t fray more.

I also decided to mix and match the direction of the stripes, although I kind of wish I’d done mismatching stripes on the bodice front too. For the ties, I sewed them both ways to check which I preferred and I actually loved both so used one of each on the outside.

I also realised that when I turned up the sleeve cuffs, there was this lovely tuft that looked like an intentional trim at the edge, so I did this on both sides. I finished the sleeves by sewing two lines of shirring. The sleeves themselves were self drafted starting from the By Hand London Holly sleeve which I made taller, gathered at the shoulder and then longer and wider so it hit my elbow and had a bit of puff.

This dress was a labour of love. I struggle to slow down sometimes when sewing and although I did finish this in an afternoon I didn’t compromise on finish so it’s definitely something I’m proud of. Might just hang it in the window and look at it for the near future.