Still not a sunny day today, but eventually I managed to take some decent pictures of my new dress. By the way, I really like this dress, the shape, the ruffled sleeves, the pockets, and the pattern of the fabric. It’s officially spring now!
The fabric is vintage Javanese cotton batik that used to belong to my mother. It has black and red pattern, which are quite unusual choice of colours for traditional Javanese batik. The quality of the cloth itself is fabulous, the weaving is so tight that I had difficulty pinning through it. The fabric has a little hole in the corner so it’s not perfect anymore and that was why my mother allowed me to cut it. When she gave it to me, my mother said that I can use it for myself, but I can not use it to make stuff for other people. Can’t agree more with her, this fabric is too gorgeous I’ll definitely keep it for myself!
Beautiful vintage fabric is always so intimidating. I’m always afraid that I would make mistake when making something out of it. But when I browsed through my new ‘Stylish Dress Book 3’, I noticed dress N and thought that it would be perfect for this pretty fabric. The shape looks pretty simple with rounded neckline, pockets, and ruffled sleeves. Well, you might have noticed that I like ruffles or gathers as I’ve used them for almost all of my dresses (or maybe all of them!).
The ruffles on the sleeves of this particular dress are attached after the dress is finished, so they’re sewn onto the dress and not on the armholes. I cut my ruffles on the edge of the fabric because I like the white strips on the selvedge. Then I handstitched them to the dress with red embroidery thread.
The dress has neckline facings sewn on the outside. In the book, it uses different fabric for the facings, but I just use the same fabric and added some red Japanese cotton binding strips to define the shape. The same binding strips are also used to finish the inside of the armholes.
The pockets are actually very interesting as they are not patch pockets, but parts of the lower front dress. The pattern of the fabric makes it hard to see the pockets, but you can see it more clearly in the technical drawing.
I use the side edge of the batik cloth for the hem, it has these interesting triangle patterns and I don’t have to finish the hem! Just like almost all projects from Stylish Dress Book, this dress has no zipper, buttons, or any other fastenings. You can put it over your head as easy as putting on a T-shirt. Love!
Pattern is Dress N from Stylish Dress Book 3.
Your dress and that fabric look amazing! I think you definitely did justice to that great print, the triangle on the hem is so cute!
LOVE the dress!! You are so talented!
Hi! I love Batik and I just love what you have done! Simply beautiful!
What a gorgeous dress!! love the fabric – very inspiring as always
love your shoes btw!
oh my god, this is amazing! Im not a big fan of batik, but this one is a great job! so you know, im such a big fan of yours. :))
hallo novita, your blog is sooo inspiring…jd pengen mulai jahit, emg buku2 jepang tempting bgt ya, tp susah dibaca
and u made it with batik, cool…..
Beautiful!
Your dress is amazing. It looks even better on you. Great job.
your blog is fabulous! how can i get my hands on this book in the us?! love the patterns -beth
I’m lucky to live in Japan so I can easily get them in bookstores.
But I guess you can buy them from Amazon.co.jp or try searching them on etsy. Here’s one of such seller: http://www.etsy.com/shop/pomadour24
Love this dress. So pretty!
this dress is just perfect!! you are so talented!
As I suspected…You look smashing in this darling dress. I might have to check out one of these dress books. For some reason, though, I do not think the dresses would look the same on me as they do on you. You’re too cute! I do have five daughters that could probably rock these dresses, though. Yep, I must give the patterns a look-see.
You go girl,
Cassie
just totally beautiful – the colors in that fabric are perfect.
the dress is beautiful, and you look gorgeous in it. clap clap clap! awesome!
Sorry, double-posted my comment. Whoops!
Ooh, it’s super-cute. That pattern would be cute with a long-sleeve shirt & leggings underneath in colder weather, too.
so gorgeous!! the little ruffled sleeves are perfect!
So lovely, so beautiful, so cute!!
Love, love, love!!!
P.S. I ordered 2 Macra me owls- aquamarine and red (can’t wait to come in Croatia). I’ll definetely order brown and wheat for autumn!! Thx for sharing lovely stuff with us!!
Have a nice day!!
Oh aren’t they cute? I’m really tempted to buy more owls and place them on the wall. A wall of colourful owls! Glad that you like the owls too!
Cute! I really like the sleeves.
Stop by my blog to enter a giveaway for a free pair of sandals!
So glad to see the full-length photos! This dress really is a gem.
Hallo Mbak Novita, I’ve been lurking for a while and decided to finally comment on this post
I must say, I love, LOVE what you do with all the Batik! I love Batik myself and am currently learning to sew. You’ve really inspired me to make some Batik dresses myself! Those sold in stores mostly look either too difficult too wear, too “ibu-ibu”, or too much like “daster”, you know? 😀 When I fly home next time I’ll make sure I get some stash of Batik! Hopefully I can go to Solo, because buying them in Jakarta will make me poor…
Spread the Indonesian love in Japan, I’m rooting for you!
Salam hangat dari Berlin,
Alex
Hi Alex,
thank you for dropping by
I’m lucky that my mother has a collection of batik and sometimes she let me have one or two. But sometimes I bought from stores too, the last time I bought batik is in Batik Keris, Pondok Indah Mall (I’m lazy!).
So inspiring!! Now i feel like making dresses
Love this dress! You used your beautiful fabric very wisely, the result is stunning.
Absolutely beautiful. At the moment I’m only making bags (no need for fitting!) but every time I read you’re blog I get more inspired to try clothes.
Keep up the fab work x
Oh so beautiful!! Stunning, stunning on you. This is definitely my favorite!! (sorry I’m too excited)
Thank you Yoshimi! I’m pretty excited too that I was finally able to cut the pretty fabric to make a dress with satisfying result!