Last weekend we had a trip to my friend Alicia in Kenilworth, primarily to do a fitting of “The Dress” to be able to continue working on it.

It was first thought about last July, when the sari fabric was draped around Alicia Dress-making and continued progress in More dress-making and more … then in Dress progress, and it has been on my tailor’s dummy since then.

It was tried on and, much to my relief, it fitted. Alicia was thrilled to bits with it, she loves the colour and fit, and said it felt like a party dress. As you can see from the dummy, it appears rather revealing, and it needed a “dickie” for modesty, so a wodge of fabric was put down the front as a temporary measure. It’s pulling slightly at the front partly because the lining isn’t joined at the centre front and the centre back, to make it easier to do round the neckline and armholes when I was attaching the lining (hand dyed with Procion dye). This was not the first try on, I’d already levelled the hem, cut it and overlocked it.

It fits well at the back too, and I’m so pleased with the concealed zip.

The decorative band from the fabric was pinned on, but there were a few doubts about it.

After sleeping on it, I wondered whether we could lose the gold part in the band.

The lining was pinned up to see how it looked, but without the trim it lost the whole point of the fabric. It just looked fairly ordinary. The dickie was supposed to be press-studded in place, but the fabric was so fine that I thought they would show. I couldn’t get my head round how to attach it between the dress and the lining, and stay neat at the bottom (it looks a bit bulky at the bottom as the lining is still open inside).

It was decided 3:1 to go with the band without the gold. The band was machine-stitched together up to the bottom of the V-neck line, and the gold was ironed flat inside for the sides of the V neck. The dickie was made a bit bigger than the pattern. It has two layers with a fold at the top, overlocked round the rest of it and stitched by hand to the outside of the dress, where it was then trapped between the dress and the decorative band, again by hand.

The centre front and back seams of the lining were machine-stitched, and the lining hand-stitched to the zip making sure it was far enough away not to get caught in the zip, which is so annoying on many bought lined garments.

The lining hem was cut level with the dress, folded over twice and machine-stitched. Then the hem was hand-stitched, a race against the clock before we needed to leave…… I didn’t go over by much!

But there wasn’t time to iron the dress before the final try on. Alicia was so excited, she was dancing round the room, it’s all ready for a party or two once it’s had a quick press.

It wasn’t the easiest of fabrics to work on, nor was it easy to get the overlocker tension right for such fine fabric, but I’ve learnt a lot. Alicia wants me to make up the sari fabric that was given to me at the same time, so that we can wear them together to go somewhere special.