New Summer Dress

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Finally, the perfect little summer dress.  I hit a few snags along the way, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.  The dress is exactly what I had imagined.  It's comfortable and light and perfect for the hot hot hot weather we've been having in the city. 

The shape of the bodice came from the pattern used in my first dress, which had a similar design.  I used only the bottom portion of the bodice pattern, stopping at the armholes and adding an inch and a half at the top for additional fabric to create a casing for the elastic needed to hold the dress in place.   

Vogue Pattern V8631

I used Vogue Pattern V8631 to get the shape of the skirt.  The pattern was perfect except for the pleats, which didn't work with the gathered concept I had in mind. To get rid of the pleats I carefully folded the pattern piece, taping the pleats down with tiny pieces of masking tape so as not to ruin the pattern.  Once the pleats were folded down, the pattern piece could be used to cut out the fabric for my gathered skirt.    

I initially planned to self-line the entire dress so I wouldn't have to deal with finishing off the hem, but I didn't have nearly enough fabric to cut out a second layer of the dress.  Instead, to finish off the very long hem I made my own bias binding by cutting strips from my left over fabric.   The strips were cut diagonally or on the bias - instead of with the grain, straight up or across the fabric - because fabric cut on the bias has more flexibility to shape around the curved hem.  I sewed each strip together and ironed them to create the folds.  I then sewed the binding to the edge of the skirt before attaching the skirt and bodice together.  Creating your own bias binding is a very time consuming process.

After testing out the finished product while running errands, I realized that gusts of wind would not be my friend in this dress.  To keep the skirt from blowing every which way I tacked it down about halfway between the hem and the waist with three tiny stitches in the hemline.  The stitches are virtually invisible from the right side of the dress.  Problem solved.  I love the end result so I just may have to create my own pleat-less pattern for future use and multiple versions of this dress.