June is coming to a close and Pride Month festivities are winding down. Despite all the crappy things happening in the world, it was wonderful to celebrate Pride with my friends, family, and community the past few weeks. Usually, I’m a walking, talking rainbow in June, so I couldn’t end this month without making a new rainbow garment. Using rainbow stripe handwoven cotton from Blackbird Fabrics, I sewed the Chantelle shirt dress by Seamwork. I think it’s the perfect look for wrapping up June and looking forward to the summer.
Originally released as part of Blackbird’s Summer 2022 collection, I snatched this fabric last April and held onto it tightly until now. The fabric was handmade in Bengal, India and the texture of the fabric is nothing like I’ve ever felt before. The cotton is lightweight and airy with slight bumps and irregularities that I absolutely love. I was concerned about working with mostly white fabric because I have a tendency to spill or drop things on myself. So far, it’s still crisp and clean, but it’s still very new. I will say that the fabric laundered beautifully and none of the colors from the rainbow stripes bled into the white base.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – I love shirt dresses. I currently have three shirt dresses in various forms of completion and Chantelle has been on my “to make” list ever since it was released in August 2023. It features princess seams, side pockets and short sleeves. I needed nine buttons for Chantelle, so it was fun to use multicolored buttons to create a rainbow down the dress. The rainbow stripes add a slightly lengthening effect, and the dress stops right above my knees.
Thanks to the in-depth instructions and video sewalong, Chantelle is a pretty straightforward pattern to sew, especially for an intermediate pattern. One issue that I ran into was figuring out how the front facing fits with the shoulder seams and collar. Neither the instructions nor the video were very helpful. I think the top of the facing is supposed to meet the shoulder seam and be stabilized by a stitch in the ditch, but that really didn’t work because the facings are about an inch too short. It’s annoying, but it’s something that only I can see, thankfully.
