TL; DR – Even quilting cotton can make a great dress, don’t get cocky and read the damn directions.

There are lots of places to get fabric. Your local fabric store. Internet fabric shops. Facebook destash groups (OH GOD BE SO CAREFUL). Goodwill (they are usually curtains, but yards of fabric for cheap are yards of fabric for cheap, even if you have to unpick seams). Your local buy-nothing group.

When I see sheets or fabric up for grabs on the buy-nothing group, I express my interest immediately, and hope I get chosen. I now have lovely black-and-white sheets for either muslins or making a quick wrap dress. And I have a pile of quilting fabric of varying lengths. I have been wondering what to do with some of the shorter lengths, and this Mary Quant mini-dress is perfect for 2 yards of fabric of just about any pattern, because the 1960s.

I didn’t have quite enough to do the facing in the matching fabric, but I found some solid quilting cotton for five dollars for two yards at Micheal’s, and the white was perfect for the facing. If anything, this is my first truly frugal dress, that cost less than five dollars, with a free pattern, free fabric, cheap facing fabric, and (checks notes), oh yeah, an actual YYZ zipper, the most expensive part of the dress lol.

I’m not going to lie, the next few makes are going to be all about how I’ve gotten cocky and didn’t bother to read the directions and just assumed I knew what I was doing. My biggest mistake? I SEWED THE SIDE SEAMS AND FINISHED THEM BEFORE THE FACING. So, I had to trim the finishing and then unpick the seam and…LOL, what was I thinking. Oh, I wasn’t. I was thinking that I knew best, and clearly I didn’t.

So, anyway, I also messed up the collar and facing, insofar as it wasn’t precisely aligned. So the dress looks weird zipped, but unzipped, it looks a bit like a 70s-style notched collar. So, HOORAY! And, while it isn’t proper rainbow, it feels fitting for Pride Month, supporting my LGBTQ friends and family.

The cotton is super-light and it’s a cute, breezy summer dress. It isn’t the most flattering, and I might still take in the sides a bit more, but hey, it’s a dress that was practically FREE!

And maybe that’s why I didn’t care that that I kept fucking it up.