At last! The much-vaunted Klimt dress. I splashed out on these two gorgeous panels some months ago, and pondered how best to use them to their full extent. The fabric is GLORIOUS and the print is actually metallic, perfect. I think I got them from Frumble fabrics, and each panel was about £12, measuring 24″ by 45″. I think they’re cheaper now dammit.
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer is the painting at the heart of the film ‘Woman in Gold’ which is worth a look, if only for La Mirren.
I pondered, re-pondered and cogitated. No waste, no cutting in, hmmm…
In the end I decided to use the bodice from my much loved Vogue 1312
and just attach the panels somehow as a skirt. Easy enough, but I managed LOTS of balls-ups in this make, which should have been quite speedy. I like to make the bodice all stretch, and with a double layer for the body, single for the sleeves. I find that enclosing a loop of wide elastic at what I laughingly call my waist stops it from riding up or drooping back over my shoulders. I’ve made this three times, how could it go wrong?
Well it did.
I remembered [this time] not to sew the side seams until I’d bagged out at the neckline. Yay!
I then put the sleeves in flat…and sewed up the sleeve and side seam in one pass. Cool.
Until I got ready to attach the skirt, and made to slip the elastic loop between the bodice layers. Doh. SO I partially unpicked the overlocked side seams, and resewed them partway down, with the two layers separate. I hate unpicking overlocking.
I simply sewed the two panels together at the sides, leaving a slit open at the bottom. I messed with the printed borders to get a nice neat hem. I wanted to use a somewhat vintage technique of levelling the hem first, then taking up any discrepancy in length at the ‘waist’.
Now allowing for my flat bum and big belly meant I knew this would not be straightforward, so I accordingly faffed about with chalk and pins, trying it on, basting again, re-trying etc until it was almost right. First 2 attempts looked OK but the checkered pattern on Adele Bloch-Bauer panel was floating across my fat bits, and I wanted it above, so I needed to trim some off the bodice and try again.
The missus came home at this point, so I got her to help me with the 3rd fitting [slight improvements each time as I tried to keep the majority of the pattern intact. She disapproved of the pouching above my bum, and we contrived two veryt small pleats to take up some slack. Not much room to mess with this with a total width of 48″, minus seams, and hips of 44″ to fit in.
I trotted off, basted it, machined it, trimmed, then overlocked. I added some gold trim to the neckline, because, Klimt. Did hair and makeup, found shoes, and rousted the missus to take photos. Which the sweetheart did, 60-odd of them, and very nice too. We also took the pics for the Avery tops [next post].
I sat down to sort the photos…and realised that I’d sewn the bloody skirt on back to front, so the ruddy thing was all uneven at the hem, and pouching on belly AND bum. Jeez.
More overlock-unpicking, re-basting, re-sewing, re-overlocking. Much paranoid checking at each stage.
Back again, more pics.
Y’know, I think I love it. More fabric would of course have been better, but I just adore the print so I don’t care. This will be worn!

And here are some of the 60 pics the missus took with the bloody skirt on backwards…

Anyway, channelling this loveliness
Led me to this travesty [yes, I really am this uncoordinated, despite practising in front of the mirror. The missus guffawed.



BEEAUUUUTIFUL!!!! Worth all the unpicking and gnashing of teeth.
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I’ll need to remember not to eat too much when wearing it though!
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Kiss my belly doesn’t have the same ring to it. 😂 On a more serious note…… I reckon you’ve showcased Klimt in a brilliant echo of Emilie’s dress style. I love your work.
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thank you!
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Love those fabric panels – just had to immediately go buy Adele B-B. I’ll just stare at it a while before (if ever) making up.
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it’s gorgeous isn’t it? AND IT’S SHINY! What will you make, any ideas?
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Amazing use of those gorgeous panel prints. A really special dress that you look fabulous in. Especially love the kiss sentiment.
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lol I can’t help myself- I may be 58 but I haven’t grown up yet lol
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Gorgeous!
And I loved the making of story. Made me laugh out loud. That’s exactly how sewing goes.
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This shape really looks good on you DF. And I love the Emilie photograph and her diminutive artist in a dress. I saw these panels from other famous artists but was afraid to tread. Well done.
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Thanks- sometimes my tube shape works to my advantage- more curves and the pattern would be lost in the folds!
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Very 20s and elegant; love it!
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Don’t grow up DF. We love you as you are and we love that amazing dress!
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I just cancelled my subscription to adulthood, it wasn’t working for me…
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Glorious dress. I haven’t got the bottle just yet for these panels but am thinking the Tree of Life panel would make a lovely tunic for me. You are always inspiring even though you scare the shit our of me with some of your more daring creations because I am a bit of a shy rabbit.
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lol According to my students, shit scaring is my superpower!
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Love it! Aren’t these pictorial panels fun to work with despite all their challenges?
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SO satisfying to make something [almost] zero waste. I think I shaved off the top selvedge and about an inch of the print, to get the length right. It’s so fun, can’t wait to see how my new pupils respond lol
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That is stunning!! It is beautiful and one of a kind. I love it!
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me too lol
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Truly amazing. Funny how you can email back and forth with a person and feel like you know them…especially how they look. But when you seen them, they aren’t at all like you pictured them to be. Not like any math lecturer I ever met. Great style! MaryJane in the Mts. of WNC.
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lol thanks! I’m terrible at matching up real names, with usernames from different fora though, so regularly get quite startled when I finally join the dots! I’m now trying to make myself an Edwardian dress inspired by Lincoln Cathedral…in three days. Wish me luck!
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Fabulous fabric! I wouldn’t know how to start with panels. You’ve got a perfectly lovely dress!
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It gladdens my heart!
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Kismet? You and I must be buying the same things; I picked these up on Fabric.com a couple of months ago (never saw them in the stores EVER) and am pondering how to make them work. I did buy some of the coordinating reddish gold check, but it doesn’t actually coordinate that well. And there’s the ‘i’m small and these panels are awkward’ so I set the whole pile aside to age in the stash. And here you are wearing them and this looks smashing. I have that photo of Klimt & Emilie Floge somewhere on the hard drive; maybe I go with what they are wearing and let the panels fall where they may…..
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There you go! We’re all family eh? Maybe delibvaerately setting the panels asymmetrically, paired with a plain black , gold or that delicious green? They are very narrow, but maybe with one edge sitting just off centre, extending away from middle fore and aft, you could get a cool caftan out of them? I couldn’t bear to cut into the length, even trimming off an inch of black border made me wince lol
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Taking the art teacher look to new levels……with real art!
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someone had to take the bullet…
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I’ll confess I was struggling to imagine how this would turn out but it’s every kind of awesome. And I just love the ‘kiss my ass’ reference!
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I loves it!
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It never occurred to me that the models looked exactly like the paintings right up to the hair, but she does! Great dress, and the plain bodice is a good idea. I did a large needlepoint of that back painting and still have it. I bought the kit in Germany in 1984 or so and fortunately finished it way back when when I still had the oomph for that sort of thing.
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I hope you have it framed in pride of place? The couple of posh cross stitch kits I completed still languish in a drawer….
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Er, it’s draped over a table in the romance corner of my bedroom, so it’s pretty intentional, but not framed.
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I have to say the ‘big kiss’ made me laugh–
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I have the back view framed and hanging on my wall and now every time I look at it, it will remind me of you!!!!
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