Sewing Diary: Pink Gauze Swing Dress

I have had a lovely few yards of dusty pink crinkled cotton gauze in my fabric stash for a few years, so since the weather is now summery, I decided it was time to use it up. I leafed through my collection of drawings and clippings for ideas on what to make with it, and came up with this design for a loose-fitting flowing dress:

Pink Gauze fabric and my dress design.

Because the shape was so simple, I did not use a pattern for this. I just drew my shape with a Sharpie marker and a yard stick onto the fabric and cut it out. I also made neck facings, and some very slim spaghetti straps. Speaking of skinny straps, I highly recommend this tube-turning tool. It makes strap-making as easy as pie!

Here are my homemade spaghetti straps, ready to be threaded through the casings.

Neck facing about to be attached.

This gauze fabric does stretch quite a bit while it's being handled, but for this design, it didn't matter too much. Usually though, I would have stay-stitched the neck and armholes to avoid the stretch.

The finished product.

This dress did not take me very long, and I am pretty pleased with how it came out. As you can see, the hem isn't Exactly how I planned it - the pointed are on the sides, instead of in the front, but I still like it. The only other negative is that the fabric is really sheer, so it won't really work as a dress, but I can wear it as a swimsuit cover-up or as a nightgown. I am in love with this shade of pink, the two rows of gathers at the neck and the straps.