A Shirred Maxi Dress

Ahhhh my computer is fixed! I'm so glad the guy who worked on it last time was able to work on it again. And he managed to save all my photos and documents, and sold me a lovely laptop so. ..hopefully I can blog more consistently since the task is now much, much easier. I'm thinking of starting a separate blog for non sewing related photos since I take far more of those than I do of sewing projects, so I'll hopefully get that up fairly soon! It is such a beautiful time of  year and I love seeing how everything is changing and growing. Anyway.

I forgot all about this dress I made last summer until I pulled it out at the beginning of the month, in a slightly late, slightly frantic attempt to find something somewhat normal looking to wear to my brothers wedding. While I ended up not wearing this dress, pulling it out and trying it on reminded me that I had not blogged about it, even though I did take pictures of it and fully planned to!

This dress came about because of three lengths of floppy, light, stretchy knit fabric I got at Wal Mart last year. The first bit I used for a black t shirt (and it wasn't great for a fitted t shirt) and the second pink bit I used for part of a fairy skirt I made Anne to give a friend for her birthday. The third length was this tan knit fabric, which I thought was a lovely neutral color but has the unfortunate tendency to appear flesh colored. I remember thinking I ought to dye this dress but I never got around to doing so. Maybe I will, so I can wear it more confidently this year!

Since the fabric was really bad for fitted things or things with many seams I decided this could only be a successful dress if it was cut all in one length. Therefore, the basic dress is just a tube, hemmed top and bottom, and the straps are also tubes just sewn onto the tube dress. To create a little shaping I decided to shirr the bodice area by using elastic thread in my bobbin and regular thread on top. While it worked out okay, I regret doing each row separately as the elastic thread wants to pull away from where it is sewn together at the center back seam. A spiral sewing pattern of one continuous seam from top to bottom of bodice would have worked out better. So, lesson for next time!😁

I finished this dress right before 4-H fair and wore it there - it was nice and cool during a pretty hot, humid time of summer. 

And now it's April and already getting warm and even slightly humid - huzzah! Time to pull out this dress more frequently and wear it often!

Much love,

Sarah