Some of you may recognize this dress. I made this for, and wore it to my good friend Suzanne’s’ wedding (she’s the gorgeous on the in the Batik dress from the Starting Again, Again post, 3rd photo down).

I had had the eyelet fabric (fabric with cool little holes in it) for quite some time, but once again had yet to figure out what it should become. I had originally bought a matching cotton as a lining, but it ended up just washing out the pattern of the eyelet fabric.

Turns out all I needed was a wedding to go to and a look through my stockpile of fabrics to come up with this idea!

The dress is fully lined with the grey cotton and the top has boning in it for structure. And, of course, there are pockets! I’m always sad when I make a dress without pockets (and its usually because it just won’t fit in the design). As a woman, I have discovered the necessity of having pockets in dresses and skirts. It has kind of become my signature; you need to have somewhere to put your hands!

Eyelet fabrics are ones that I have worked with before, but never any as nice as this one (it’s from Britex with 3 combined gift certificates!)

Turns out that if they are well made, you can treat them a bit like lace and trim the edges to enhance some of the patterns. That’s what I did here for the waist band:

…and here on the hem:

…as you can imagine, this took me a VERY LONG time! but in the end I think it was a most successful try, and was totally worth it.

Looking forward to finding another occasion to wear this to!

Let me know if you have an eyelet fabric you aren’t sure what to do with, I bet we could come up with something really fun.

-Katy

p.s. to see more of Drew Beck’s awesome photo skills, please go to his page.