Loose dresses are great for warm weather. They expand to fit if you expand. After a meal. After a month of eating. When you are alone at home or in a hotel and nobody sees you.
Large Size Or Loose Dress
When I first came to Singapore, I could not find dresses large enough. All the Chinese owned shops were for local teens and had clothes in English size 8 which was US size 6. I later found that Mohammed Mustapha's giant 24 hour store on the edge of Little India (also in India) had large dresses.
Meanwhile, I had bought a lot of caftans from small market shops as well as big department stores. Why bother to make my own dress?
Why make a dress. Because I was tired of endless shopping. But I still needed clothes. How long can you go on shopping, filling the wardrobe, wasting your day, meeting strangers, shop assistants, when you could be making ongoing friends in a sewing circle? I joined an expat ladies from Australia sewing circle. I joined all Singapore's expat associations, the English speaking ones, Australian, American, Canadian, British and Scottish and South African. I had bridge clubs at the American Club, and magazines from all of them full of activities including the Australian sewing circle..
Sewing Circle
At the sewing circle, the other ladies were not making dresses. They were sewing quilts and dolls and teddy bears and cushions, mainly for a charity event for another organization I was not part of for an event when I would be back in the UK. However, you could bring along whatever you were currently sewing to the sewing circle. And get advice. They all had sewing skills. the leader of the group was a sewing teacher.
What impelled me to try making a dress?
1 Large branches of Spotlight sold tempting areas of bales of cloth of all kinds. I kept buying cloth.
2 I also had a new Brother sewing machine.
3 I kept buying cut-price dress patterns.
Advantages of Caftans
A caftan looked so simple. Two straight seams up the long sides. A symmetrical v-neck. What could be simpler?
If you want to make a caftan, copy one you have, buy a cheap one to copy, buy an expensive one to copy, or find a pattern to copy, or make a pattern based on any dress or night dress you already have.
Useful Websites
About the author
Angela Lansbury is a travel writer and photographer.
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