Tencel Colfax Dress


My latest make! It's the new & shiny Colfax Dress by Kelli at True Bias. I think she has an absolute effortless style and I love everything she makes and the patterns she drafts. I have made 5 (!!) versions of her Southport Dress alone. Her patterns fit me with minimal changes needed, so we are definitely talking TNT AND #fangirl territory. 

Her latest dress pattern is a lovely summer dress- cutaway/racer back style in a slightly A-line shape. The pattern has a lovely front yoke (which I then proceeded to omit... More on that soon.)

I think this style is quite timeless so I used a dark Tencel for my version (Spotlight). I loved some of the inspiration ideas Kelli linked to- there are also lots of denim/chambray swing dresses to be seen on Pinterest and I don't think there's one I didn't look at! In the end I got an idea for an exposed zip in my head and I had to go down that route. This style reminds me a bit of the Tessuti Ruby dress, but I like that this pattern has the front darts.


I used a method similar to her front yoke to make a facing for the zipper. Instead, my facing is turned to the wrong side. I fudged the exposed bias in this area so that's a technique I need to work on. The dress was then sewn as-per the pattern, but I used a bias facing instead of the self-fabric hem facing as written. I wanted to maintain the fluidity of the dress and I am very happy with the result! 


This is a size 8 with no fit changes. 

While I love the True Bias designs, my only qualm is that this dress was released just as our (Southern Hemisphere) summer is finishing!! No matter! While sewing up this dress I tried it on over my raglan tee to check the bust darts. I loved the styling and you can bet I will be wearing this dress as a "tunic" throughout our Autumn AND winter. It is shown here with my Papercut Patterns SJ tee (one day I need to fix that wide neckline on that pattern!). 




So that's my new dress! I wore it this morning and a friend commented on it: "You made that?? Even with the zip??!!" It made me smile that it's pretty easy to impress non-sewing friends :)






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