When I was making my list of sewing projects for this year, one item I really wanted to sew was a dress. My partner and I were invited to four weddings this year, so I thought maybe I could venture into making a wedding guest dress. The June garden formal wedding seemed like the perfect target.
Inspiration
I needed a “garden formal” wedding guest dress. For an outdoor wedding in summer, I wanted it to be a natural fiber so that it would be breathable and durable. I’m also trying to stay away from polyester unless absolutely necessary for microplastic reasons, etc.
Here’s the inspiration dress that started it all!
I have no idea who sold this dress, I couldn’t find the original anywhere online. When you reverse image search it now, my reddit post asking for fabric choice advice is one of the top results.
I searched through Threadloop and The Fold Line for a pattern and found New Look 6800. This had the under-bust seam, gathered bust, cross-over bust panels, and a waist seam which would help create a fitted look around the torso. The only downside was that I could not find any examples of a finished dress using this pattern! There were very few reviews—but this was a problem I would later serendipitously solve.
Research
Bernadette Banner on YouTube introduced me to Milanote (this is a referal link, but I don’t make money from it, they just give me more storage ;).
Milanote is great for making conspiracy theory bulletin board style moodboards. I put my pattern, fabric choices, inspiration photos, notes, and everything else here to help me visualize the project.
Fabric
I had the hardest time deciding on a fabric for this dress. I figured, “It should be formal, should I use chiffon? Or satin?” As I scoured the internet for fabric ideas, two things set me on the path to my ultimate choice.
The first was the aforementioned reddit post, asking for fabric advice. One comment suggested cotton sateen, and another user backed that up and expressed their desire for it to be more widely used.
The second was stumbling upon the old version of this pattern, New Look 6557, on a sewing blog post explaining how much fabric would be needed for a dress. How lucky!
This gave me a whole library of completed photos of multiple views of the dress. Users expressed issues with fitting the view I had originally planned to sew (view B) and so I decided to go with View E. I also decided the pattern did look better in a more structured fabric vs. a flowy one.
I had ordered a few samples of fabric and decided in the end to go with a green cotton sateen from Renaissance Fabrics.
Supplies, Budget, and Timeline
Speaking of purchasing fabric…before I dive into the creation of the dress, here’s my budget breakdown for this project. Not included in this table are pins, my iron, scissors, and my leather clover thimble that I already had. I also used tracing paper and extra pattern paper from the pattern to trace new pieces with changes.
I was very happy to come in far below my budget.
| Item | Budget | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Paper pattern (on sale) | 10 | 9.50 |
| Fabric samples | 5 | 5 |
| Main fabric (4 yards of cotton sateen) | 80 | 69 |
| Lining fabric (1 yard of cotton broadcloth) | 36 | 10 |
| Fusible interfacing | (already owned) | 0 |
| Hook & Eye | 4 | 3.30 |
| Zipper | 15 | 2 |
| Thread (polyester) | 10 | 7 |
| Sharps Hand Needles Sz 10 | 0 | 6 |
| Rigilene boning | 0 | 6 |
| TOTAL | 160 | 117.80 |
The timeline for the project went as follows:
February – picked the pattern and started thinking about fabric
April – ordered and received fabric swatches
May – bought and received fabric, made 1st and 2nd mockups
June – made 3rd mockup, did ALL the sewing
Finished: June 25th! It took me almost exactly 4 months. Sewing itself only took about 20 days.
Fitting
Fitting a pattern to your body is the most challenging, mind-bending part of sewing clothing. But that’s also the thing that has motivated me to try this: I want a dress that actually fits my body.
Sometimes the issue with the fit appears to be in one area, but that’s only a symptom caused by a completely unexpected area. You have to act as a doctor or detective and diagnose the treatment needed.
After my first mockup (the first 2 pictures below) I knew right away it was too big on the side seams, by a lot. This was a common complaint sewists had on the previous version of this pattern, New Look 6557. The straps also felt way too loose and were falling down, and the back had a bunch of wrinkles.
It helped me to post photos of the second mockup to a sewing subreddit for advice. The consensus there surprised me: the midriff section was too long, and the bodice/underbust seam needed to be lower. The problem wasn’t that the straps were too long, but that the bodice was still too loose! And the wrinkles on the back could be fixed with a length adjustment. Commenters also suggested trying to do the midriff piece on the straight grain instead of bias. I agreed.
You can see the iterations of mockups in the photos above. I was happy with the third mockup I created so I transferred the changes to the pattern and also cut the mockup itself apart to use as a pattern. I wasn’t really happy with the skirt, but more consideration on that could come later.
Here’s a list of the changes I made to the bodice pattern, press the arrow on the left to read all the details.
Bodice:
- Took width off at the side seams, starting at 3/8″ at the under arm to 1/4″ at the underbust
- Took an additional 1/2″ off each side seam starting at the underarm and grading down to the original at the underbust seam
- Pinched out 0.5″ of the neckline to prevent gaping.
- Made narrower by taking out a small rectangle near the center on each side, to move the cups in closer
- Took out a dart in each underarm and transferred them to the bust gathering to reduce underarm gaping
- Using my last mockup, I used tissue paper on my body to trace out a new path for the top corners of the bodice where the straps attach so that they would point a little further out again, then just trasnferred this to a pattern without testing and it worked out!
Midriff
- Took off width from the side seams, grading from 1/4″ at the underbust seam to match the bodice and ending at the original width at the bottom/waist seam
- Shortened along the horizontal center line by 0.5″
- Cut on the straight grain
Back
- Took width off the side seams, same as front bodice (3/8″ to 1/4″)
- Shortened to match the side seams with the now shorter midriff
Sewing
Bodice
- As soon as I cut my fabric, I stay-stitched by hand with a basting stitch over all the curves in the outer fabric.
- Basted an interlining (same fabric as the lining) to the outer midriff and back pieces.
- Then I quickly basted together everything to test the fit because I’m paranoid, and it was good that I did because I needed more ease for my ribcage. The extra layers of fabric compared to my original toile probably contributed to this. So I planned to sew the side seams with a 3/8″ seam allowance instead of 5/8″.
- Gathered the underbust section of just the outer layer and basted this to the outer midriff layer. I did darts instead of a gather in the lining. I calculated the darts to be about 1.25” wide total.
- Ironed on an interfacing strip along seam line on outer, plus a small square at the v-point on the lining.
- Sewed the top outer and lining together at 5/8” along the top edge from armpit to armpit, clip/notch/trim seam allowance and folded to check all looked good. I did this first because I was again, paranoid, that it wouldn’t work and I wanted to get it out of the way.
- Sewed bodice tops to midriffs at 5/8” seam allowance. It was at this point I realized one dart that was too big was an issue so I seam ripped and re-sewed that.
- Catch stitched the underbust seam allowance down using a herringbone stitch SA to lining and outer.
- Sewed side seams 3/8” (gave me an extra 1” ease which left some room for boning as well)
- Tried it on with a basted in zipper: it fit, even a little extra ease for breathing and boning.
- I pinned in the straps where they fit the best. I found it was important to angle the back straps towards the outside of my body on the back so that the outer strap edge ends up shorter than the inner, meaning it hugs the shoulder better.
- Sewed the outer and lining together the rest of the way from armpit to the notch near center back on both sides. Left to the edge of the notch unsewn to let me figure out the zipper.
- Basted the straps in and tried it on one last time before sewing that section.
- Understitched the lining to SA at the top edge.
Skirt
I don’t even want to think about how many hours I spent thinking and calculating and drawing out cutting layouts for a skirt. Maybe that’s another blog post. For now, I’ll just explain what I ended up doing.
- Cut rectangles 47″ long and the width of fabric (54″) wide. 2 panels, 54″ each gave me 4x my waist for pleating which was too much.
- Cut the sides to make trapezoids 41.5″ width at the top and full width (54″) at the bottom.
- Sewed together at 1/4″, then 3/8″ for french seams. Wrong sides together first!!!!
- Sewed the backs together up to the notch, didn’t need to finish this seam as I used the selvedge edges for the center back 🙂
Attaching the bodice to the skirt
- Pleated and pinned the skirt to the bodice, wrong sides together. I had found a dress on pinterest that had a pleating pattern that I loved. It alternated between a box pleat and an inverted box pleat.
- I didn’t measure my pleats, just eyeballed it and made sure the side seams matched up.
- Sewed at 5/8″ SA and pressed the seam allowance up.
Finishing touches
Boning: I added 2 pieces of rigilene boning on each side seam. I’m not sure these did much but they were fun to add. I didn’t have boning channel tape, twill tape, or enough room at the side seams to use those as boning channels, but I did have some sort of herringbone tape (?) that was just wide enough.
Zipper: I followed the lapped zipper instructions in this tutorial: Lapped/centered instead of using the pattern instructions, which I felt left a lot of room for error.
Attaching the lining
- Whipstitched the lining to the zipper at the center back.
- Whipstitched the lining to the outer at the underbust seam.
- Needed to redo this in a couple spots–in future I’d make sure to pin all seams together first or at least mark SA on bottom edge of lining.
Hem: I put the dress on and had my partner measure from the floor and mark at my desired length all the way around. I folded and pressed up about 3/8″, then the rest of the amount and blind-stitched the hem down in the airport and Air Bnb.
Hook & Eye: I hastily sewed a slightly-too-large hook-and-eye onto the top edge above the zipper.
Final Thoughts
In the end, the dress was not perfect and I underestimated how long it would take and stressed myself out a bit. But I was really happy with how it turned out–the dress fit me well and was the most comfortable I’ve ever been in a dress with a sweetheart neckline.
I was really happy with my fabric choice and the choice to interline the midriff and back sections to give them more structure.
Next time, I would create a more shaped skirt that had less fabric at my waist and more at the hem. An almost-rectangular skirt shape worked in a pinch, but kind of just hung straight down and didn’t have a lot of flow. I also found it hard to sit with so much fabric around my upper legs.
For my first handmade dress, I am very proud of myself and hope I can wear this and many more handmade dresses in the future.