Following my Banana Anna, I could hardly wait to make another version; this time in the longer length.
As far as I can tell from the multiple versions of this dress I’m seeing getting made up by other sewcialists, the front split seems to be the most popular feature of this dress, but it wouldn’t be practical for my every-day life, so all my seams are sewn from waist to hem. It’s still quite twirly though.
The fabric is rayon challis . The leopard print was totally inspired by Sew Busy Lizzy when she made one of the first Anna dresses I had seen. Longer-length rayon challis dresses were so popular though the mid-1990’s; I feel 15 again wearing this dress. I think I found this fabric at fashionfabricsclub.com; they seem to have a pretty good selection of rayon challis most of the time.
One of the last tips from the Anna sew-along was to sew the zip with a larger seam allowance towards the top neck edge. I think for my next version I’ll try doing that. In the cotton fabric of my first Anna, it didn’t seem to gap, but the rayon is more shifty and it would look a little better if the neckline were a little smaller in the back.
I’m trying to look all sultry and fashion blogger-ish in these photos, but I was definitely distracted. Here’s the un-cropped version of the first picture. Ace says he was trying to make sure he could get his picture on the internet by sneaking into my photos.
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