Made by a Fabricista: All Dressed Up and Finally Somewhere To Go!

May was a month with a load of events and milestones! I'm so thrilled that I was able to get fully vaccinated and wait those final two weeks for immunity to kick in, and my relief and gratitude feel overwhelming. I toasted to a lovely Mother's Day, I celebrated my 40th birthday, and I had my first in-person gathering with my favorite girlfriends in over a year! All of these things brought me so much joy, so naturally a joyful dress was a wonderful way for me to express myself. Wearing and sewing linen were both part of my Me Made May pledge, so I'm happy to report that this dress fit the bill on both accounts. Nice!

Tiered dresses are everywhere now, and I'm finding them irresistible. They offer so much fun movement even just walking around, and they could not be more comfortable in warm weather. I have this frequent urge to combine multiple colorways of the same fabric into one garment, and this is absolute the perfect style for me to engage in those shenanigans! The most difficult part was choosing the order to arrange the colors, and I literally got out markers and paper to play around with the options. After some nail-biting decisions, I narrowed it down to pink and turquoise to sandwich the orange and yellow.

Did you know that when you order from Fabric Mart there's the option to add matching thread to any fabric? I LOVE this opportunity and have taken advantage of it for years. Brilliant! On this dress, since I worked out that either the top or bottom would each be pink or turquoise, I made sure to request those two colors. Matching thread really takes the guesswork out of the equation and then there's no delay in starting a project due to mismatched notions. Knowing I don't have to stress about hunting down thread on my own is just the cherry on top.

Linen has really shot up the charts for me as a favorite fabric, both to sew and to wear. I've always done some dabbling with this fiber, but lately I want to wear linen all the time. When I spotted all the beautiful crosshatch linens on the site, I had a mild frenzy while I considered too many things to create with all of them. How to choose!? These crosshatch linens are pretty marvelous. They each have two tones woven together and the result is a very dimensional color. These are a looser weave and very breathable and airy despite being a midweight. Since these four are all about the same brightness overall, I had a really good feeling they'd be perfectly bold and lively all combined. I was aiming for something eye-catching and I'm pretty sure I nailed it.

For the lucky garment, I opted to sew the Style Arc Nova Dress. The pattern calls for a lined bodice, but I hate the idea of an extra layer in the heat (when I'm most likely to wear a loose dress) so I omitted the lining layer and instead finished the neck and arms with bias tape. I cut 1 1/8" stripes of the same fabric to make my own bias tape, something I love to do because then the tape behaves exactly like the rest of the garment. My other wanderings from the instructions included gathering with my serger, and also to construct the front and back tiers of the dress separately before connecting them at the side seams. This allows me to arrange all those gathers evenly on a flat surface versus trying to position them in the round. Sometimes going rogue is the right thing to do.

I could not be more delighted with this jubilant dress! Wearing fun clothes is exactly how I want to celebrate this extra cheer-filled summer. This dress is perfect for a pool party, beach trip, or visit with friends and family and I can't wait to engage in all these fun events again.

Happy sewing!

KATIE | @kak513

Unfortunately Fabric Mart Fabrics sell out quickly!
You can find similar fabrics by shopping the following category LINEN.

💡 Did you know? 💡

A good portion of Fabric Mart's linens are reorderable!

This means that even if the color you're looking for is currently unavailable, it should come back in stock soon!

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