Emery Dress

A sunny Easter Sunday in Vancouver was the perfect occasion to wear my newly-finished Emery Dress for the first time.

The Emery Dress by Christine Haynes was my very first pattern purchase when I embarked on my sewing adventures last summer. Having seen many lovely versions of the dress on my favourite seamstress’ blogs certainly played a role in choosing this pattern; Plus I love the name so much! (Big fan of Jacques Demy’s musical The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg). So I couldn’t resist getting the Emery for myself even though I had no idea what a sewing pattern looked like (and very little sewing knowledge at all). Then I saw the difficulty was rated at “three spools”… and I chickened out. I again came across the pattern last month and decided it was time to give it a try.

The Sew-Along on Christine’s blog was super helpful and I learnt a lot from making this dress: set-in sleeves, pockets, lining etc. The fabric is Dot Voile in Aqua by Heather Bailey (Momentum Voile collection) for Westminster / Free Spirit. Because of the sheerness of the fabric, I lined the skirt with a white cotton voile. I cut a size 2 to make a muslin and I was pretty happy with the fit. The only alteration was to lengthen the bodice a bit.

I’m excited to wear the dress in its natural environment: the summer. Until then, here are a few pictures with a special guest appearance by Garçon, the dog.