I have some more Fiona Sun Dress action from Closet Case Patterns to share with you today.

You may recall a few weeks ago, I shared a Faux Fiona Sun Dress, declaring that it was a wearable muslin for a very precious fabric that I’ve been totally undecided about what to sew with it.

You know those fabrics. The ones you love just so much that you have at least half a dozen ideas of what to make with it – each idea seeming more filled with potential than the last.

Sometimes those fabrics even carry the risk that you can sometimes feel a little disappointed once it’s done -since nothing quite lives up to the idea in your mind’s eye.

Luckily, this isn’t one of those occassions and I’m ridiculously happy with the finished product.

The fabric in question is a drawn check stretch cotton from The Fabric Store. It’s actually quite thick, which impacted what could be done with it. And despite spandex content, it definitely doesn’t feel very stretchy. It just feels like a nice sturdy mid to heavyweight cotton.

Hacking the Fiona Sun Dress

This Fiona Sun Dress hack was heavily inspired by this version by @sewingwithhart.

This is view B of the Fiona Sun Dress with those amazing criss cross back straps. All the heart eyes for this view!!!! And the joys of being less than well endowed is that I can actually get away with bra-less styles sometimes!

My version is a size 14, graded to 16 at the waist, although I had to take it in slightly at the upper side seam.

I have removed the button front opening from the Fiona Sun Dress bodice and made the dress rear opening instead. I’ve also replaced the Fiona Sun Dress skirt with a rectangular skirt piece which, after a bit of trial and error, I have pleated. There was a bit of playing around with wider box pleats and also gathers before I settled on the final choice. The length of each skirt piece (before hemming) was 75cm.

Apart from removing the buttons at the front, the view B bodice pieces are unchanged. As I was worried about possible transparency, I fully lined the bodice with some leftover heavyweight white linen. This lining then creates a nice neat finish at the back of the bodice. I wasn’t sure throughout whether I was going to try to close the bodice somewhat at the back, but ended up liking the fully open style.

Another bonus when adding a lining to the bodice of this (or any) pattern is that you can sew up the lining first to test the fit. It’s an almost muslin!

One more little thing, the low open back of this dress means that I can actually slip it on over my head without undoing any of the buttons.

So while I actually made real buttonholes for all of those buttons, it wasn’t actually necessary – ‘fake’ buttonholes could have worked just fine!

(Speaking of buttons, I love the colour of these classic matte Atelier Brunette buttons….)

Strategic Pattern Matching

I didn’t have a whole lot of fabric to play with in making this Fiona Sun Dress. The fabric is 130cm wide and I had a about 2.2 m in total, which made for a bit of a squeeze.

It meant that I couldn’t actually pattern match everywhere I wanted to. Instead, I made the choice to try to pattern match in a few strategic locations and then let it go in other places (like those side seams – my arms will almost always cover them anyway!).

I also used contrasting pattern play – along the top band and with the patch pockets – to create more of an aura of deliberateness than actually existed!

Nothing like an optical illusion…

All in all, like the name suggests, this is pretty much my definition of the perfect sun dress.

Pity I’m only in temperatures to justify wearing it once a year or so…

Oh and, finally, a little P.S! If you like to get your blog hits through Bloglovin’, feel free to follow me over there: you can find me here. And you can find me on Instagram here.