Cotton Striped Dress

Hello friends, I made another cotton dress to wear every day. Summer is finally here and it's very hot and humid, so this dress will be a great addition to my wardrobe.

For the fabric, I used two yards of cotton shirting in red and white stripes. This fabric was inside my stash for a while, I bought it on sale in the local shop.

I used my self-drafted for the pattern (based on my dress sloper block from Basic Pattern Making book by Lucia Mors de Castro). I made the first version of this dress in gingham print but instead of a gathered skirt like this striped dress, I used a pleated skirt, link here from my IG.

My first plan was to make this dress for my entry to "April Ahoy" #magamsewalong challenge hosted by Sue and Suzy, but I was so busy with other things. I managed to cut the fabric in April but finished in May. And gladly that Suzy suggested to me that this dress will work fine for "May-be Menswear" because I used men's shirting fabric. I felt better and don't need to worry to make another garment for #magamsewalong May challenge but I will concentrate on making a basic top for #sewyourwardrobebasics that I will publish later in another post.

The sewing process started with cutting all the pieces and fused the fusible interfacing onto the neck facings. Also prepared the invisible zipper and fusible band, not showing in the picture but I reused the invisible zipper from my previous dress.

✂ Firstly, I worked on the bodices. I sewed the darts, sewed the shoulders right sides together, sewed the neck facings together and then attached them to the neckline. Clipped the curve area and flipped the neck facing in the wrong side of the dress.

✂ Gathered the skirt pieces (back and front) using two rows of stitching and pulled the threads.

✂ Sewed the skirt pieces to the bodices. Fused the fusible band along the center back and sewed the invisible zipper on it.

✂ Sewed the sleeves, the sides of the dress and sewed the raw edges using the overlocker machine. After that, I hand-stitched the neck facing into the wrong side of the neckline. 

The last part was sewing the sleeve hems and hemline. 

Here are the pictures of the final dress, front, back, the closer look of the neckline, on the dress form and on me. This dress is easy to sew and comfortable to wear, I think I'd love to try to make it in a different type of fabric next time, maybe rayon or a softer type of cotton. 😊

That's it for today, I hope you have a lovely sewing day, safe and well. Thank you for reading, friends 💗

P.S. 

The first picture at the beginning of the post was taken for my entry to #memademay2021 challenge Day 11 on Instagram, link here in case you are interested to see 😀. I love this fun challenge and this year is my 9th year of participating. I'm preparing a special post for #memademay2021 challenge and I hope to share it with you by the end of the month.