Since Sidra entered Junior High School, he becomes very busy with all the school activities. He even has to be at school on weekends for his sports club activity. My husband and I got a bit lost on what to do as the three of us usually did things together on weekends. But we have to get used to this. Eventually Sidra will have to be by himself as he grows up so maybe it is time to start letting him go.

One of the thing that my husband and I are starting to do at weekends is having a date. We would get dressed and go to the city, have lunch at a nice place and do things together. When Sidra was still in elementary school, it was very rare for my husband and I to go out by ourselves. I had forgotten how it felt to go on a date. It was strange at first -and I felt a bit guilty to Sidra- but eventually we enjoy it!

This is a dress that I made to wear on these dates. Of course I don’t always have to get dressed to go out with my husband, but where’s the fun? After all I always welcome more reasons to wear pretty dresses.

The pattern is Burdastyle Halter Dress with Ruffles 04/2015 #111B, it is already in petite size so I cut size 17. The midriff part was shortened a bit, about 1 cm. I also eliminated the ruffles as I think it is a bit too much. To do this, I just cut the strap frill two times and tapered the ends to have a couple of long straps. I was a bit worried that the floral fabric might look like a curtain, but I think it works quite well with this pattern.

Obviously I can’t wear a bra with this dress, not even the strapless one because of the cutout under the bust. It doesn’t really matter actually, but I feel a bit exposed wearing the dress in train. Sometimes the train is crowded and you have to stand a bit too close to other people. I’m shorter than most people so they can look down into my dress -deliberately or accidentally. Maybe I think about it too much! But anyway I made a shrug to wear when in train or when it gets a bit chilly.

The shrug is called Saki’s shrug, you can check more about in Yoshimi’s post about the shrug. It is delightfully simple, basically just several rectangles sewn together. But the result is quite pretty, especially in light knit fabric like this.

I love summer with all the pretty dresses, swimsuits, and tanned skin. Unfortunately it is over now, time for some pretty autumn dresses!

Dress pattern is Burdastyle Halter Dress with Ruffles 04/2015 #111B, size 17 (petite size).
Shrug pattern is Saki shrug – as posted by Yoshimi.