We love handmade (of course we do…) and that extends to fabrics too.
I was recently introduced to Celina Mancurti’s hand-screened linen fabrics. If you follow the blog, you know I’ve written before about how much I adore working with linen. And when it’s hand-printed with wonderful simple designs like this I think it makes a wonderful material for a fun summer dress.
Celina sewed up a Roller Skate Dress using a couple of her prints–one for the body and a separate one at the hem (which makes a nice customization to the pattern, wouldn’t you agree?).
A little hand topstitching in a contrasting color is a nice touch.
Here’s what Celina posted on her Facebook page about sewing the dress.
Gosh, I just love this dress. I had so much fun sewing it, and on top of that, it brought back the fondest of my childhood memories. Join me in a little flashback:
Where I was born and raised almost 40(?!) years ago in Buenos Aires, clothes were very expensive and quality was unreliable. In many families there was either a dressmaker or family members in charge of sewing clothes for everyone. In my family of five siblings, my mom and grandma were the ones sewing all of the clothes. From dresses to tailored wool coats, all was made by hand.
While working on this dress, clear memories came back to me of my mom and grandma sewing. My mom was the one tracing the patterns from the Burda magazine they bought each season, while my grandma created the basting stitches for each garment. All pieces were then sewn with the Singer machine that still, to this day, lives at my parents’ house.
What a joy it was sewing this dress and going back to my roots! The pattern and instructions for the Roller Skate Dress from Oliver + S were simple to follow, and I love the freedom that the design gives to personalize it. It was challenging to select the final combination of colors and patterns, but I decided to go with my blue ring pattern. I used plain oatmeal linen for the neckline and belt. And instead of making the lining shorter, I cut the dress a bit and added a band of the paw pattern in gray to the lining so it shows just a couple of inches below the hem. The final detail is in the running stitches made with yellow embroidery thread that I used on the hem and neckline. I think I could make 100 versions of this adorable dress…if time only allowed!
Celina has generously offered a yard of the same hand-screened linen used in this dress to one of our blog readers. So go ahead and leave a comment telling us about a good sewing memory that you have and you’ll be entered to win. (Due to shipping restrictions, the contest is only open to people with a US shipping address. Sorry, everyone else.) We’ll pick a winner on Wednesday morning at which point we’ll close comments on this post and will notify the winner by email. Not everyone can win, unfortunately. If you don’t win, you can still get your hands on this beautiful fabric in Celina’s shop.