I had this really cute blue stretch cotton fabric and I wanted a good short sleeve dress for every day. I bought the fabric at Fabric Mart one of the times I visited my parents last year. It was on a great sale so I bought all they had on the bolt. I like to do that because then I know I have enough to make whatever I want and also if anybody loves the fabric I have enough left over to make something for them. That exact thing happened with this fabric. Maggie loves it and wants a top out of it.
I have narrow shoulders but if I cut the shoulders narrower that usually means I need to cut the smaller sleeve size so it fits in the arm hole. The problem with that is then the sleeve hem is very tight and for a summer dress I wanted a little more room. Lucky for me I’m in the midst of a pattern making class and I have some new found confidence with pattern manipulation and alteration.
The other thing that I’ve gained a ton of confidence about is using pattern pieces from multiple patterns together. So for this dress I used my sloper and added sleeves from New Look 6262 which is a pattern I’ve used to make dresses several times. I just took the sleeve pattern and split it so I could ad about 1.5 inches at the hem. You can see how much room I have now.
So here she is, currently the most comfortable dress in my closet.
The skirt is a full 4 panels of the fabric which is 58 inches wide. You know I love a big skirt. The side seams have pockets of course.
I have already chosen 4 more fabrics from my stash so I can make more of these. What that means is I will need to get rid of a few things from my closet. I’m not sure if I should give them to Goodwill or try to sell them myself. Any suggestion?
If you are interested in getting more in depth sewing tips and some sew alongs and other learning excitement I am doing a reboot of my Patreon page. Patreon will now become my main teaching platform. I hope you will go over there and check it out and consider joining us.
At the same time I am working on launching a line of skirts. The first skirt style which you can see here will be released on the next 4 to 6 weeks. There will be some ready to wear skirts and also opportunities to purchase skirts custom made to your very own measurements. If that is interesting to you I would love for you to sign up for my newsletter if you aren’t already a subscriber. You can either go to the Homepage of this site or click this link to register. As a newsletter subscriber you will be first to know what’s coming up, and where I’m teaching. In addition there will be some exclusive discount codes when the new skirt line launches so please sign up today.
Please let me know if you have any questions. I’m really excited about this next step in my life.
