Nani Iro T-shirt dress made in Japanese double gauze

The perfect airy Summer dress that is calling out for sandals but today I'm choosing to wear it with my boots. Double gauze is light and floaty, a perfect choice for warmer weather feeling and it feels nice on your skin. I used our Japanese Tansan fabric to make the T-shirt dress from Nani Iro Sewing Studio book. Filled with beautiful minimal sewing patterns by Naomi Ito, be warned though they are very oversized. I make the small/medium option and they don't go down any smaller. There’s quite a bit of room in the top half of this dress and it has a cocooned shape, which was ballooning in the wind on this shoot.

Choosing to make a dress, rather than my usual top, I had a limit to how much fabric I could use. I was also working with remnant pieces so I came up with the idea of adding a panel at the hem thinking the seam wouldn't matter with the staggered print design. The little side slits are fab adding to this cool silhouette of the dress but my favourite detail is the raw neckline, an interesting and different technique.

I do like the loose and oversized styles in this book and these are lovely to sew but, if I'm honest, I'm not fully convinced about them on me. This dress is very soft and comfortable, I like that it's cool to wear but with good coverage. Though really, I'm imagining it more in a different environment such as over swimwear. A walk down to the beach in, where it will still look good after it's been rolled up in a bag .

Yes, I think I just made the perfect good cover up, hot holiday dress, which I don't need this year! Until then, I think I will try layering it, worn over a pair of linen trousers or jeans, with boots or trainers obviously!