Pioneer Woman Dress

I’m calling this my Pioneer Woman Dress. It makes me feel like I’m on a wagon train heading out into the unknown. The full, swishy skirt is my favorite part. I made this lace cardigan to wear with it, which perhaps detracts from the pioneer vibe. I love mixing textures, and I also love the high-low mix of the lace and plaid.

The dress fabric came from Fashion Fabrics Club. It is a very soft, floppy cotton/linen shirting. I had been looking for a plaid in this color combo for a while. The guipure lace is from Paron in New York. It is a fantastic quality, and it was a very good price. The last time I went there, though, it was sold out.

I sewed the cardigan with applique seams. For my previous foray into lace, I hand-stitched the whole thing. For this one, I thought I would try machine-sewing the applique seams, and it worked fine. There are actually kind of a lot of darts in this cardigan for shaping. It’s hard to tell, but I drafted the sleeve to balloon out a bit at the bicep, which required 2 darts per sleeve. I like the effect. The cardigan is trimmed with grosgrain at the neckline and I put 2 buttons on the inside at the waist, with corresponding button loops at the center front.

I have more of the lace, and I am going to post the cardigan on my Etsy shop.

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Closeup of the lace

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Dress back

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Dress without cardigan

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Detail of just the cardigan

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