Polka dot wrap dress

Initially I had not planned to write about this dress – it was only the third dress that I had made at a time, and there were many better makes afterwards. However, have just thought, that in fact this dress was quite important – having completed it I finally started to believe that I was capable of making neat and tidy garments – it was in a way my breakthrough.

Interestingly enough, the fabric for this dress was sitting in my drawer for few years. It sat there from the time, when I initially had contemplated starting sewing, however at that time this did not quite materialize. I had bought few cheap fabrics in my local fabric store, however did not quite harness enough courage to actually start. Naturally, for my first proper dress I chose simple and cheap fabric – in case I would end up ruining it after all. No ruining happened, instead, I learnt quite a few important techniques with this make and ended up having a proper dress!

The pattern I used was McCall’s M7892. For the first time ever I had bought a pdf pattern – it was the very apogee of the quarantine, online shopping was difficult, waiting times long, so buying pdf pattern seemed like a good idea. It took quite a bit of time to assemble the sheet and make actual pattern pieces. After that, I have been using pdf patterns occasionally, but do not enjoy using them all that much – I prefer opening traditional pattern envelope and just cutting what I find there.

With this dress I very quickly understood that it is not that great an idea to apply medium weight interfacing to light weight fabric. The waist part of this dress ended up being rather sturdy due to the interfacing I chose. Making the belt and the waist part was rather tricky – had to unpick some of the seems and try once again. After all I managed to achieve a tidy and neat look and was pleased with the result!

The only alteration I made was installing elastic into the hem of the sleeves – open style as designated in the pattern did not quite appeal to me. The skirt of this dress is full circle skirt. On windy days I have to hold it somewhat in order not to reveal too much.

This was McCall’s pattern M7892 and I chose to make view D. The fabric is 100% cotton in beautiful medium sized polka dots, I bought it from my local fabric store. It took 3 meters of the fabric to make this dress, mostly because of full circle skirt. Other notions were thread, one fastener and elastic. The dress cost me 15 EUR. It was made in April, 2020.

I really like this dress. It is certainly not the best of all that I’ve made. But it was the best of all at the time of completion. The fabric is really nice and feels soft while wearing it. In a way I should probably be proud of this dress as it launched me into the world of more complex, more interesting and high quality sewing!

Let’s all stay healthy! 🤍

~Giedre~