color-blocked washi

i finally got pictures of my washi dress!! 

note: please excuse the "i just spent an hour in the very windy pumpkin patch and happen to be way overdue for a haircut" look.

details: the pattern is the ever-so-popular washi dress by Made by Rae, and the fabrics are moda bella solids in etchings charcoal, betty orange, chartreuse, and magenta and the miami print (colorway: downtown) from Jay McCarroll's center city collection. the dress is fully lined with white batiste. fabrics all from sewn studio.

i made a large, as my measurements were pretty spot-on with the pattern size chart. i considered making the full bust adjustment because those measurements were really close, but didn't (and wish i had, clearly it's a wee bit tight there). oh, well... next time, right? because of course there will be a next time.

all of the great things you have read about the washi are true! this dress is a quick sew (once you piece your fabric together, at least). we've all seen a ton of amazing spring and summer washis, but with a long-sleeved shirt or cardigan, leggings, and boots, i think it makes a great fall (and maybe even winter) garment as well. also, Rae just released a long sleeve for Washi pattern + tute!

because of the seaming, i wanted the dress to be fully lined. to finish the armholes, i used bias tape and then hand stitched in to the bodice lining. in the back, i created casings for elastic instead of shirring. the lining is sewn in the side seam of the dress to the top of the pockets, after which the side seams are sewn independently of each other. i hemmed both the dress and lining by hand.

my dress was inspired by Fabio's design in season 10, episode 6 of Project Runway (shown below, photo courtesy of mylifetime.com) and by Jay McCarroll's center city collection for Free Spirit.

it was a fair amount of work to line up all of the fabrics so that they would all be on-grain, but completely worth it. as you can tell from the wrinkly state of my dress, i've certainly been wearing it ;)

yay for washi!