Wrapped in Flowers - Named Kielo Wrap Dress

This has been an interesting week in weather. I've had to wear long sleeves and scarves on the way to work and then on the way home, I'm hot because the temp decided to take an afternoon jump. So weird. It makes it hard to give up summer even though we are finally TECHNICALLY into fall.  I've decided that I want to get just a FEW more summery pieces in before I have to wear a peacoat everywhere I go lol

Enter, the Kielo Wrap Dress by Named that I've had on my heart to make since Spring weather ended back in May. This is my 2nd time making a named pattern even though I have about 13 of their patterns lol I cut the size 10 for this.. or better yet, a size 42.

This is such an easy dress. It only took me a couple of hours on Friday (and some finishings on Saturday morning) to make it up.  I got this BEAUTIFUL scuba/neoprene (idk which one) fabric from, the ridiculously generous, Jenese when we were getting ready for the Sew Social back in August.

Because it was scuba or neoprene I was a bit scared to iron it at first but I just went ahead and got out my silk organza pressing cloth and everything went fine. No scorching or anything.

I made two adjustments on the dress. The first adjustment was to add 3-1/2 inches to the bottom so that I could get a FULL maxi. Being 5'9.5 the maxis in store NEVER cut it. And if they do, they don't after one wash lol I wanted this dress to sweep the floor and it does. It also would look appropriate in heels as well.

The other adjustment I made was to take in the armhole 2" more than the notch on the pattern. It was oddly low on me and I looked at other people's pics and theirs weren't like that. Maybe they did the same thing I did? *shrug*

Every time I make a pattern, I try to think about how I can put MY spin on the garment. I remember seeing a dress on Facebook with a jeweled necklace design on it and thought that might be a nice idea for this dress. I wear gold with mostly everything but I don't own any big gold statement necklaces. I remembered that I had a pack of studs that I had bought months ago but kept forgetting about so I decided to add a studded design to the neck of the dress. Unfortunately the sun reflecting on the studs makes them invisible but they did keep me from having to find a necklace, so they served their purpose lol

One other thing that I did with this dress was that I hand sewed all of the hems except for the bottom hem. I left the bottom edge raw. I wanted to hand sew the neck, armholes and slit because there are so many colors in the dress and I didn't want to commit to one color for topstitching. I feel like it would have taken away from it. I'm happy I was smart enough to have the idea to slipstitch (arm holes and slit) and catch-stitch (neckline) with WHITE thread to make it almost invisible.

Who am I? Hand-sewing to keep the integrity of fabric? *tuh*

All-in-all, I am absolutely in LOVE with this dress. I can't wait to wear it OUT next summer. It's starting to get rainy and cold around these parts so I'll try to be patient.

Oh! I wore this dress to The Naturalista Hair Show 2015. I have tons of pics from the event so I'll probably share them in another post. But I'll leave you with this one and a pic of me and my photographer for the day!

What do you think? Have you made a Kielo?? Chime in below!

bonus** lol photobombing stranger