Zebra Dress: Post #1 (by Grace)

Welcome to our shiny new blog! We are kicking it off with guest blogger Grace from So On and Sew Forth. Did you follow our poll over on facebook to select a fabric for a vintage 70s dress?
 Grace will take you through, step by step, how she will make the dress. And here is her blog post #1

Alice recently acquired lots of vintage dress patterns, and when I asked her if I could borrow a few she suggested I make something with material from her shop. When I called to see what she had to choose from, it was tricky. She has A LOT of fabric. We finally whittled it down to three by Alexander Henry, and put it up for vote on Facebook! 

These are the fabrics:

I was rooting for the dinosaurs to win, but in the end it was the zebras that swung it! It'll probably look the best as a dress after all, as the print is a bit smaller.

Here is the pattern we settled on:

It dates from 1970 and is just about my size! I'm going to make up the green version (short sleeved). I'll probably leave out the white ribbon detail as the fabric is quite busy already. Maybe I'll add a lace collar or sleeves. I'll have decide when it's almost finished! That blue style is pretty cute too.

Once the vote closed I went to collect the material from Alice. When I opened up the envelope I was surprised to find two parcels!

The big one was the zebra of course... 

Guess what was in the little one?

Yay - dinosaurs! So excited! It's a fat quarter of pure kitsch. I'm thinking of what I'll make with it. Definitely something to wear - I'm not going to waste it on a cushion cover! Or perhaps a tote bag would be cute.

I can't wait to get started cutting the dress out tomorrow. I'll post up photos of how I get on this week!