Sunday, January 18, 2015

Summer Staple Dresses

I got the April Rhodes Staple Dress in the pattern parcel (number? can't remember). At first I didn't think it was my thing, but I was interested in trying the whole elastic thread shirring procedure, so I gave it a whirl.

This fabric was from an old stash, something I picked up maybe 8 years ago during one of my more fitful attempts to get back into sewing. I LOVE it. It's a light-ish cotton, and the wavy water pattern makes me happy. I have a little more. Maybe a blouse? It made a perfect summer sundress.



Lots of people style these with belts, but I don't love them. My torso is so short they generally make me look chopped up weirdly. So the shirring had to be enough. I sewed this with french seams, and stupidly omitted the pockets. Why?!? Never again! The front was fine, although I think I sewed the shoulder seams again to pull up on the front and raise the neckline.

The back is less good:


I did put in two shoulder darts after the fact, and resewed the neck band, but not much can be done about the pooling fabric in the back.

So Staple Dress #2 I made out of this totally fun print from Fabricland, which I underlined with batiste since I hate wearing slips in summer. On its own, it was almost see-through.


It was my first experience with underlining, and I think I did a good job, but HOLY COW that hem is awful. When you live alone, hemming is always an issue. I try to wait until my mom is coming by, or I'm going to her house, which is how I managed on version 1. This one I wanted to wear, so I did it myself.

Sigh. Lesson learned. Yes, it is somewhere around 3" shorter on the right side. But I didn't want to shorted the left to match, because it would be crazy short then.

French seams on the shoulders, but I serged the pieces before I sewed them together on the body, since I couldn't wrap my head around doing french seams around the pockets. (Which, now that I think about it, was probably the reason I left the pockets off the first time around.)


The back. Look at that fabric pooling above the waist! Grrr. Man, I really have a short back.


Anyway, I see lots more of these in my future for summer 2015.

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