Tea House Dress Done Alyson Style

Me in the Tea House Dress

The cuff detail featuring Eye See You print in Sunrise combo

This is the Sew House Seven Tea House Dress done my way. Using cherry red chambray that I bought over a year ago, I decided to make this gorgeous pattern my own. You may recognize the fabric from another project. That project made me realize that the chambray was a great match for my fabrics in the Sunrise colors combination. I felt that the waist tie and sleeve cuffs were the perfect places to use my Eye See You design in Sunrise colorway. This was printed by Spoonflower on their Petal Signature Cotton fabric. 

This was my first PDF pattern and the experience was exactly what I expected…long. I loved the instant gratification of buying it. But going somewhere to print it and then piecing it all together kind of made it worth waiting for in the mail. The process was easy but tedious. Now that it is all together, I can make more dresses from this pattern and tops. Which I will make. I traced this pattern off the printed version because I wanted to preserve it for the top and the long version of the dress. 

My hand embroidered pockets were inspired by Japanese sashiko stitching. The Eye See You waist tie shares a similar pattern.

I also created a test muslin to be sure the dress worked on me. It was perfect. Just a note, I created the test muslin without the waist tie and the cuffs. It would have been a waste of fabric to do so. I kept it simple for fitting purposes.

After cutting all the pieces in my fabric and stay-stitching the curves, I put together the pieces that I could. And then onto the pockets. I knew that this was going to be a longer process. I decided to create a sashiko version of the Eye See You print. I hand embroidered the pockets for a few days, enjoying the slow process of stitching. I did it while sitting with guests in my backyard. And while listening to my latest chick-lit audiobook. 

Once the pockets were finished, I could finish the dress. And it looks great! 

I love the fit, the color, and my gorgeous print. This is the first time I have created a garment using multiple surface design techniques, my original embroidery, and print. Just one issue was my placement of the waist ties. I had a little difficulty with the instructions and didn’t realize the ties should be placed at the front panel seam. Instead, I placed it too high. Ooops. Oh well, I'll do it better next time. 

I’m going to enjoy my dress.  BTW, all jewelry is Alyson Jon Life. My hair accessory is a vintage scarf covered headband by Recyclicious.