Posts Tagged ‘Summer Dress’

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not that big into labels. I don’t really care who made it as long as it looks good….Well that’s true with one exception. I love Calvin Klein. I can only afford to buy the dresses that come through Marshall’s or TJMaxx, but to be perfectly honest, I own a bunch. They fit perfect, they have super clean lines and they always look classy. What’s not to love? So when Vlad’s mom brought me back some amazing linen fabric from Africa (yes, I’m spoiled), I knew I wanted to do a dress inspired by their summer collection. They have this great shirt dress that I just love:

To go about making this, I opted to combine two patterns that I have: The skirt from Simplicity 6799 and the top from McCalls M5801 (currently out of print). Before I go on, let me make one comment about M5801. The packaging doesn’t do it justice. It makes the pattern look way cheesier than it is with that terrible fabric choice. I actually really liked the pattern because it took into account cup sizes, which I thought was great.

I added an invisible zipper all the way down the front instead of snaps or buttons. I hate the way normal shirt dresses gape in between buttons so I wanted to avoid it. This may be one of the best fitted dresses I’ve made (that’s not stretch). I really love it. They only thing I wish I would have done differently is pay attention where the seams are. The seams on the front don’t exactly match since it was from 2 different patters. If I were to make this again, I’d probably adjust the skirt to match up. Also, this is the first time I’ve worked with linen and I found that I need way more pins than normal because it slides more. The front (where the zipper is) ended up shifting quite a bit, so that doesn’t look great. Otherwise I love this dress, it works great with browns or with black. Definitely a great add to the wardrobe.

OK, so let me start off by saying I’m sorry for being terrible at posting regularly. Quite frankly, I’ve been super busy. I have a top secret sewing project I’ve been working on with my dear friend Heather all summer (I’ll reveal it with pictures after next weekend). On top of that, I’ve been house hunting. I don’t care what they say about it being a buyers market; it’s hard to find what you are looking for. I’m a first time home buyer on a baby budget for the DC area. Maybe I’ll tell you about the “fabulous” houses in our price range later (we saw a house with no walls for starters), but for now…sewing.

So I bought this brown and white dress a few years back because I thought it was super cute (which it was). But honestly, I’m a little to…how do I put this…”blessed” to be wearing a triangle top anything. I always had to wear a tank top under it, which kind of defeats the purpose of an easy breezy dress. Not to mention, it shrunk almost 2 inched the first time I washed it. So I decided to redo it. All I used was the dress and 2 plain white t-shirts (you can just use 1 if you’d like).

To begin:

1. Cut the top portion off. Get ride of it. Or be like me and wear it over your shirt while you’re sewing the project to “be in the spirit”…I never claimed to be normal…moving on

2. Shorten the skirt. Keep the scrapes.

3. I used one of my favorite boat-neck tank tops and traced it for the top. Be mindful that the front and back are different. Also, I cut 2 fronts and 2 backs so my top wouldn’t be see through.

4. Trace the neck piece. Cut the front and the back out of scrape fabric from step 2.

5. On the bottom and top edge of the neck pieces, sew a guide stitch at 1/2″

6. Pin the neck piece to the front/back top pieces. Use your guide stitch to turn the bottom edge under.

7. Top stitch the neck piece in place along the bottom edge.

8. Use the guide stitch to turn under the top edge. Turn under the white fabric to match so you’ll have a clean top edge. Top stitch in place.

9. Sew the front and back pieces together along the shoulder and sides (I surged these edges)

10. Cut some 1″ stripes of the t-shirt fabric.

11. Pin strips to right side of the arm hole.

12. Sew 1/2″ seam around the arm hole

13. Turn seam so that it becomes the new edge, as you are doing this, tuck the raw edge of the 1″ strip under. Now you should have a 1/2″ strip on the inside of your arm hole.

14. Top stitch in place.

15. Sew skirt to top… Pleat as needed for your body.

16. Hem

DONE!

So cute, so short, so mod. It’s the perfect summer dress. I definitely got more use out of it after I redid it than I ever did prior. Good luck!