Last January I set out to finish a dress in a week for an online contest. As nearly anyone could’ve predicted, I didn’t. But I did get it started. And then I stuffed all the components into a bag in my closet and forgot about it.

I know. You are now looking between the first sentence and the title thinking, “But it’s January again. That’s a whole year, not half.” And, yes, it is a full year since I started the dress, but that is just because I have been as lazy in writing about it as I was in making it.

Anyway, the dress and its pieces sat languishing at the bottom of my to-do list until around September. That was when my mom asked me to come work an outdoor tea for her organization, and I decided this dress would be perfect to wear to it. I had most of the main fabric cut and pinned, so it wasn’t too difficult to finish up.

The pattern is Butterick B5882, from the “Patterns by Gertie” collection. I used the print-at-home option to “save time.” I tihnk it ended up taking me just as long to paste all the parts together as it would have to get the physical pattern in the mail. But I have the full pattern saved in my computer if I were to ever want to make it again without having to keep way too many pieces of paper around.

The main fabrics of the dress are actually home dec cottons, and it is lined in muslin. If I wasn’t lazy, I could’ve dyed the muslin to match. But it took me almost ten months to sew the thing, so i think we all know that was just asking too much. I also decided to leave off the inner waist belt. I just like being able to breathe, really.

The thicker fabrics make the skirt nice and warm, which you expect to be a good idea for a mid-October tea. Unfortunately it was still 112°F, but it was good in theory.