Returning to Stylish Dress Book: Wear With Freedom– the mother of all Japanese dressmaking books – I found there are still a good number of dresses in it that I haven't made, so turned my attention to tartan shirt-dress V. I like the loose shape of this design and the gathered lower front panel. The shirt collar looks great on the twenty-something Japanese model pictured, but experience tells me that wearing a sharp shirt-collar with my own short grey hair and middle-aged face is a dispiritingly dowdy look. Instead, I redrafted the neckline with a simple scoop shaped front, drafted a facing, and took out the centre front button panel replacing it with a centre front seam.
I used two and a half metres of a checked suiting fabric– another£4 a metre bargain from Worthing's Wednesday market. The book suggests you use 2.8 metres but I managed to match the checks at the side seams and had some fabric left over, so consider their estimate generous. I shortened the front hemso that the hem line dips lower at the back, it makes the shape of itfeel a bit more sprightly in this heavy fabric.
The dress has been such a hit that I have worn in three days in a row - unprecedented behaviour from someone who is not averse to changing outfits twice in one day.