Dreaming of…Cambie dresses and the journey to dress perfection

This post is the start of a two part story. A tale that will speak of adventures in fitting, bountiful fabric choices and the holy grail of perfect dresses.

Yes, it is the tale of the Sewaholic Cambie dress. And yes, I am rather late to the party! So late in fact that, despite having coveted the dress ever since it’s release (2 years ago!!), I only bought the pattern a month or two ago. Even then, it arrived on my doorstep in all it’s packaged glory…and I made some other items from my list.

Until ….I could wait no longer. I kept returning to my ‘to do’ pile and somehow the Cambie kept creeping to the top. Crafty little thing. So I finally gave in. She would be next to be made. I took the pattern over to my fabric stash and hit another snag. I wanted to make a Cambie dress in every fabric I own! After much deliberation I narrowed it down to 2 fabrics.

I knew both would be beautiful, but I couldn’t choose between them myself so I put it to the vote. The border print won and I was satisfied. Or so I thought.

During the day I cut out and made up the lining to check the fit. It needed taking in a bit, but other than that it was pretty perfect. However, as I went to bed that night I couldn’t stop thinking about the wax print and how well the bold print would work with the girly lines of the dress (yes this is what I worry about at night).

Suddenly a revelation occurred. I could make another dress – and this time, I could make it reversible!!!! The Cambie dress is fully lined anyway, so it wasn’t a stretch to make the lining in a fashion fabric and then use a reversible zip.

third and final fabric

I already had the lining for one version cut out, so I decided to make up the border print first with the plain blue as the lining. I chose one more fabric to act as the reversible side for my wax print, and cut out 3 fabrics at once to speed up the whole process. Voila- Cambie was well on her way to being the star of the story!

Fully lined

Floral Cambie was a dream to sew up- the only alterations needed, were to pinch out some excess fabric at the back and pull the straps through a little bit more than asked for. Just like that she became the heroine of part 1.

So I took plenty of photos to give her the spotlight she deserves!

As you can see I had to fold the hem the wrong way as I wanted to keep the darker border along the bottom, but had cut the skirt too long. Luckily the ‘wrong side’ barely looks different to the ‘right side’. Unluckily I had overlocked rather than French seamed the skirt, but I don’t think it’s too obvious. In fact, I think it’s floral Cambie trying to add a bit of a quirk to her leading lady character!

We went exploring together

She was begging to be worn with these shoes and I didn’t blame her as they are possibly the most beautiful shoes I’ve ever seen.

Wax print Cambie is all made up too and desperate to be shown, but I’ve told her to wait her turn and quit trying to hog the limelight!

They’re both looking forward to rave reviews – I’ve told them that they shouldn’t care about what other people think, but should be confident in themselves! 🙂

P.S – everyone over here is also feeling a little smug because I’m joining in with Sally’s summer stashbust and we’d like to point out that you will see not 1, not 2, but THREE fabrics stashbusted into Cambie form!