I took pictures of January's dress on Sunday. It felt so lovely to put on a sundress. I know things will be warming up by the end of this month - just a few weeks - but it doesn't feel like it (wind chill of -45 when we left for work this morning). I am sick of the cold and to make-believe it was summertime, even just for an hour, was pretty cool (er ... I mean warm).

I used the same pattern pieces for this dress as for my November dress just removing the very top of both front and back and adding a casing for the ribbon instead. I cut a two inch bias strip to sew down the front and added lace over that. I left the edges of the bias strip raw for a bit of texture. My piece of ribbon was just long enough to thread through the casings and make a bow; I trimmed about half a centimetre off the ends to tidy them up.

This fabric is really nice. I don't know what it is but it smells like cotton when I press it. It's soft and kind of heavy and I like the way it hangs. It had an almost linen like sheen before I washed it but crinkled up a bit afterwards. It is from the stash and I had almost forgotten about it but something had sent me digging around in a bin of old fabric and it caught my eye. I know for sure that I didn't buy it. Several years ago, when I was living with a couple of girlfriends, we went through a skirt sewing phase and both Katy and Liette bought large pieces of this plaid to make long, swirly skirts out of (I think I might have the pattern too). I know for sure one of the skirts was made but I don't remember about the second one. There were lots of leftovers anyway and it ended up in my stash.

The strip of lace down the front is from the bag of laces that Samera's mum gifted to me a few years ago. I love using the bits and pieces from that bag. So many of them are unusual and "just the thing" to finish off a project. I sometimes wonder what they've been used for before and if any of them have stories. Some of them are quite old and a few look handmade.

p.s. February's dress was going to have its photo shoot on Sunday too but when I put it on I decided the back was doing something funny and needed tweaking. With luck and sunshine I should be able to get some pictures of it on Saturday.