I sewed and hand-painted a sheer rayon dress to recreate this fashionplate of a pretty 1929 polka dot dress.

I wanted the dress in bluish mint green and white. So I used fabric paints in green, blue and white, and thickener to mix the color I wanted.

I finished the dress partially, but left the side seams open for the painting process. The scalloped hem is finished with a 1920s imitation picot hem.

Partly I painted the dress freehand, partly I used the lid of the fabric paint or …

… cut out paper stencils to mark the position and size of the polka dots.

It took so long to paint the whole dress! And because the table was only big enough for parts of the dress, I had to wait till that part was dry before I could paint the next part. So it took some days to paint the whole dress. And my back hurt afterwards! 😉

Then came the ironing to fix the fabric paint. And then, finally, I could sew the side seams closed! 🙂

I gathered the waist at the sides with running stitches, otherwise the dress wouldn’t hang pretty.

‘What you’re doing there? Won’t you do something more interesting than stand in front of that boring white sheet?’ 😉

I’m wearing the dress over an apple-green slip.

As you can see, the dress is very sheer. I used a 100% rayon chiffon fabric, a fabric which was already used in the 1920s.

It’s so fun to twirl in the dress! 😀

And a lilac bouquet I gathered yesterday.