A Monet Inspired Dress

Today we offer you beauty.

Spring births beauty.  And we needed a little beauty.

Sometimes life is harsh and cold, like winter. But spring always comes, and hurts are forgiven and forgotten.

New life, new hope, new beauty.

Spring.

This dress was inspired by the Top Stitcher’s Art Gallery prompt.

We already entered our Senna Tote in the sew along for the Pioneer prompt, but we just HAD to participate in this one too! Here’s the prompt.

Who is your favorite artist? What do you love most about their work? Their vibrant use of colors? Their use of repeating patterns and geometrics? Their soft flowy painting techniques? Their subject matter? Their mood?
Let their overall style, or a specific piece of work from their portfolio, inspire a modern-day head-to-toe ensemble.

If you’ve been around Skirt Fixation, you know art is something we love and imitate often. In fact, we have a whole series devoted to Skirt Art. That’s where we choose a piece of art with a skirt in it and replicate it using a skirt and photography.

For the Art Gallery sew along, we chose Monet.

Monet used the color blue often in his paintings. And he loved to paint gardens and flowers en masse. He was one of the Impressionist painters, so we need soft and flowy in our entry.

Naturally we turned to one of our favorite dress patterns, the Uptown Downtown dress. Annie’s feather dress won’t last through summer, so a summer dress was in order.

The first time we made the Uptown Downtown dress, I had fabric like this in mind, but Allegra overruled. And I’m glad she did! Her choices were perfect for winter. But spring has come, and it was time for beauty.

The only change we made to the dress was using fold over elastic on the neckline, sleeves and hem. There was a dual purpose in this; both for aesthetics and because the floral knit fabric from JoAnn’s was so tissue thin it was very difficult to hem.  We used this fabric first on a Lane Raglan.

And we love the finished look.

We discovered this wooded glade carpeted with bluebells and felt we’d stepped into a Monet painting.

It was quiet and there was a stream. But most of all the bluebells reigned supreme.

Annie stood knee deep in bluebells and declared this was fairy land.

What do you think? Would Monet approve?

What beauty has spring gifted you?