Hawaiian Helios Dress

I'll be honest with you, I don't remember too much about the construction of this sewing project. These photos were taken a year ago, shortly after I made this dress, and my memory of the blow-by-blows is hazy. The reason I waited a year to blog about it is because this week was the first time I got to wear it. The dress was made to showcase a new fabric design (more on this in a sec), and was on display at a couple of fabric and sewing shows. Seeing as large-scale shows (both trade and public) are not happening for the foreseeable future, the dress resurfaced and I got to give it a whirl during this week's heatwave. 

Fabric:

I was given the opportunity to sew with some of the first batch of fabric produced by Fabric Godmother. All their prints have been developed using vintage pattern designs derived from textiles, wallpaper and even floor tiles. They were all lovely, but this amazing Hawaiian design called 'Hula' sung out to me the loudest.

The base cloth is a viscose crepe, which is a fabric type that I have little experience using. As you'd expect with a viscose, it can be quite slippy, so I really had to take my time cutting out the pattern pieces. Stitching it wasn't too challenging, but pressing flattens the texture somewhat, hence the slight fluted appearance of the sleeve hems in these pictures. They'll lay flatter once the dress has been washed, I have no doubt. 

One of the things I love about this fabric is the scale of the print. The designer has clearly thought about it carefully, and with garment sewing firmly in mind. It's large enough for the images to be recognisable from afar, but not so large that it limits the types of garments you can make from it. 

The colours are great too. As a lover of Hawaiiana and Hawaiian-inspired fabric, I'd be the first to admit that the colours are usually very bold. But the colour palette in this feels more wearable, and makes me think of vintage postcards sent from holidays long passed. 

Pattern:

Fabric Godmother also allowed me to choose a pattern to use to try out their fabric. Historically, I don't gravitate towards flow-y fabric to sew with, so I had to give my pattern selection a lot of thought. I have, however, experienced many hot days, both on abroad and in the UK, when I wished my warm-weather clothing selection was a bit bigger. A floaty dress that skimmed my body would have been very welcome. 

Eventually I opted for the Atelier Scammit Helios dress pattern, because it had the breezy style that would suit a viscose, plus it had a cinched-waist silhouette that I feel my body needs. As with most Atelier Scammit pattern designs, the Helios dress pattern offers multiple style possibilities (see below). There are two sleeve variations and three lengths. I went for the less dramatic sleeves, and picked the tier-free skirt shape but lengthened it to hit just below my knee. 

(image source: Atelier Scammit)

Elastic is inserted into the back half of the waist, and the front is pulled in with a drawstring, meaning that although it defines the waist, it's still really comfy and can be adjusted easily. Of course, I had to position the waist channel higher than the pattern recommended to account for my short-waistedness. 

As you can see, the neckline is a deep V-shape. I normally dislike V-shaped necklines on me (unless it's at the back!), but I think the width and depth of this one looks nice.

Thoughts:

As you can tell, this project and garment took me out of my comfort zone. Sewing with an unfamiliar fabric pushed me, and since this project I have taken on a number of viscose and slinky fabric projects. The style still isn't something I'm immediately drawn to, but when I wore it during this week's heatwave, it felt fantastic. This also raises the dress-tally of my wardrobe to two (discounting two shorter ones that I now wear as tunics over jeggings)!