My original plan for this month's post was to make a knit dress with a knit cardigan, but as soon as our weather began to give even the smallest hint of warmth I abandoned all thoughts of cardigans and immediately turned my attention to knit dresses.
I think I found two dresses to live in this summer and the good news is that they are both made from knits- meaning it won't take forever to make them!
The first dress was made from a beautiful ponte that is a mix of rayon, nylon and spandex- maybe you were one of the lucky ducks who recently snatched up some of this ponte when it was on sale for $2.99. If you were one of those lucky people you will love working with this rayon. I had hoped to purchase more of it when it was on sale but so many of you are faster shoppers than I, and it was quickly sold out! Please Fabric Mart, bring us more of this ponte!
The dress was made using a modified version of McCalls 7348. The two modifications I made were minor, the first was to shorten the neckband used to finish the neck. I shortened it by 2/3 and inch. The second modification was to remove some of the fullness from the skirt since I wanted to be able to cut the dress from 2 yards of fabric. I simply folded in the pattern fullness from the side hem of the skirt portion until the pattern fit the fabric.
You can see in the picture below the fullness folded from the skirt portion beginning just under the waist down. I folded it in by a total of 7 inches at the hemline.
In keeping with making this dress as easy as possible I skipped hemming the sleeves and skirt. You cannot tell in the least. The fabric is so gorgeous and I really prefer it since it doesn't have any polyester content and therefore should be cool enough for warmer weather. I now know what I will be living in this summer, dresses just like this!
The second dress was made using a rayon/spandex jersey knit that can still be found here in pink. For this dress I used the famous McCalls 6886, I am sure if you travel sewing circles you've seen some version of this dress before. Recently while searching for this dress online I found a great blogger who has altered it to get numerous fun looks from it- fun!
It is extremely simple to sew and fit. I graded mine out (as usual) from a 10 at the bust, 12 at the waist and 14 at the hip and then to get an even better fit I tried it on inside out and pinned the spots that needed taking in around the high hip. There is no neckline finishing pattern piece so you are somewhat on your own there. There are tutorials for finishing a knit neckline out there but I winged it by attaching, then ripping out and readjusting- not the best method. A few tutorials that could be helpful are found here, here and here.
The most time consuming part of this project was the stripe matching. It takes some patience and I usually end up laying the fabric on the floor and pinning each stripe down every couple of inches. Even with all my careful stripe matching I some how managed to get the sleeves stripes off but the busyness of the fabric covers it up well enough for me.
While making the photos for this post I marveled at so many of you who are able to take pictures without the above shenanigans. There were so.many.pictures with faces and arms coming out around me! These gals keep me smiling and laughing! And they are also such sweet support often saying of anything I make "Mom that is so pretty!" and "You look beautiful." Warm's a Mommy's heart!
I think I found two dresses to live in this summer and the good news is that they are both made from knits- meaning it won't take forever to make them!
The first dress was made from a beautiful ponte that is a mix of rayon, nylon and spandex- maybe you were one of the lucky ducks who recently snatched up some of this ponte when it was on sale for $2.99. If you were one of those lucky people you will love working with this rayon. I had hoped to purchase more of it when it was on sale but so many of you are faster shoppers than I, and it was quickly sold out! Please Fabric Mart, bring us more of this ponte!
The dress was made using a modified version of McCalls 7348. The two modifications I made were minor, the first was to shorten the neckband used to finish the neck. I shortened it by 2/3 and inch. The second modification was to remove some of the fullness from the skirt since I wanted to be able to cut the dress from 2 yards of fabric. I simply folded in the pattern fullness from the side hem of the skirt portion until the pattern fit the fabric.
You can see in the picture below the fullness folded from the skirt portion beginning just under the waist down. I folded it in by a total of 7 inches at the hemline.
In keeping with making this dress as easy as possible I skipped hemming the sleeves and skirt. You cannot tell in the least. The fabric is so gorgeous and I really prefer it since it doesn't have any polyester content and therefore should be cool enough for warmer weather. I now know what I will be living in this summer, dresses just like this!
The second dress was made using a rayon/spandex jersey knit that can still be found here in pink. For this dress I used the famous McCalls 6886, I am sure if you travel sewing circles you've seen some version of this dress before. Recently while searching for this dress online I found a great blogger who has altered it to get numerous fun looks from it- fun!
It is extremely simple to sew and fit. I graded mine out (as usual) from a 10 at the bust, 12 at the waist and 14 at the hip and then to get an even better fit I tried it on inside out and pinned the spots that needed taking in around the high hip. There is no neckline finishing pattern piece so you are somewhat on your own there. There are tutorials for finishing a knit neckline out there but I winged it by attaching, then ripping out and readjusting- not the best method. A few tutorials that could be helpful are found here, here and here.
The most time consuming part of this project was the stripe matching. It takes some patience and I usually end up laying the fabric on the floor and pinning each stripe down every couple of inches. Even with all my careful stripe matching I some how managed to get the sleeves stripes off but the busyness of the fabric covers it up well enough for me.
While making the photos for this post I marveled at so many of you who are able to take pictures without the above shenanigans. There were so.many.pictures with faces and arms coming out around me! These gals keep me smiling and laughing! And they are also such sweet support often saying of anything I make "Mom that is so pretty!" and "You look beautiful." Warm's a Mommy's heart!
Thanks for reading!
Elizabeth
SEW VERY PRETTY! Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much! And so much fun to make!
DeleteSo cute on you! Especially LOVE that black maxi!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, I love it when a project is so simple and yields such good results. I think I will live in that black maxi this summer and there will be more!
DeleteTwo great winners!!!! I love your blog, you are so talented!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your sweet and encouraging words!!!
DeleteBeautiful dresses!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThank you very much!!
ReplyDelete