I made two dresses in February, or mostly in February. Although I had planned to make them, it ended up being a last-minute, end of the moth project.
I had this jersey:
And this Vogue pattern:
I had planned to make this dress out of this jersey for some time, but, as usual, had kept putting it off until I found myself needing a dress for an event.
I decided to make the dress on Friday, for a Saturday evening event (2/28). I wanted to make a long dress, and since I knew the fabric was quite sheer, I also wanted to line it. Luckily I had both the jersey above, and a large roll of black power dry in the stash, so I was set on that front.
I did think I needed a muslin. And I also knew I wanted a floor length dress. I also have a bolt of brown bamboo jersey in stash, purchased long ago, when I wore brown a lot more (in those days of “color me beautiful” in which I was often misdiagnosed due to health issues that affected my coloring). I saved the jersey to use as “muslins” for knit patterns, and it worked perfectly here.
I traced off the pattern, lengthened it, and cut the jersey. The dress only contains two pieces so that was easy enough. And I was thrilled with the results:
I absolutely loved the brown jersey version. Although this was meant to be a muslin, and I don’t usually intentionally make “wearable muslins” I wanted to wear this dress so I wore it around the house Friday evening, and again Saturday while I made up the actual dress. I decided that I would finish the brown version as well, all that remained was to turn under and finish the back neckline, and the hems. But I didn’t have any brown thread in house. (I had sewed the “muslin” using turquoise thread.)
Then Saturday morning I started working on the actual dress.
First I cut the power dry version, which was pretty straight forward. Laying out the micro rib tissue jersey was much more time consuming. This was partly because the fabric was so sheer, it was hard to keep it laid out flat, and also because of the ribbed texture, it kept wanting to pull in on itself. The trick was to get it to lay flat without letting it relax, pull off-grain, or stretch out. Laying out the fabric proved to be the most time consuming part of this dress.
I basically constructed two dresses and then attached them at the shoulders/armscyes. Then tried them on to determine the hem. The power dry had more vertical stretch than the modal jersey, so it took a couple of attempts before I got it right, but I did finish the dress in time. And I was happy with the results. The power dry added opacity and also tended to gently skim the body rather than cling, taming the rib on the micro-jersey, and giving the dress a nice drape.
I was very happy with the results, and I needed a basic evening dress that wasn’t quite as unique and individual as some of my other dresses. I am sure it will get its fair share of outings.
The next week, while I was out shopping for a different project, I picked up a spool of brown thread and finished the brown dress as well. So far, I’ve only worn it swanning around the house in the evening, and I am quite happy with this dress in that setting. I can imagine wearing it out though with pretty gold sandals and a delicate necklace, or perhaps some funky wood beads, so who knows.