Summerdress from lovely leftovers!

Do you also find it difficult to throw away the leftovers of that lovely fabric? I do!
More than once it happened that when I throw it away I think of something that I could have done with it ....

My mother use to keep scraps of fabric too. Ideal for making dolls dresses. Perhaps it then emerged, that I keep leftovers.


(Nederlandse versie)

Scrapbusting

Time to shrink that stash of leftovers. I have a lot of leftover jersey and the selection I made fits nicely together in terms of color and design. Now a plan to process them in a fun way.

I went looking for a pattern for a dress with many pattern pieces that I could easily cut into smaller pattern pieces. It was this dress from Knipmode. Not meant for jersey, so I could easily leave the split and zipper. Joy!

Jurk 1, Knipmode juni 2018

I cut the pattern pieces and the puzzling could begin. The particular shape of the front lent itself well to further cut up that part, so I could process smaller pieces of fabric.

I attached the middle piece of this cut up pattern to the middle part of the front skirt. I had a long thin strip of the floral fabric that I could use entirely. I had a larger piece of the same fabric, just enough for the back skirt.

'Key-hole'

The stripe fabric was the most challenging. So I had the idea to create a 'key-hole' back, because you'll need slightly less fabric. In my enthusiasm for this idea and the concentration to ensure that the lines would go through I made a clear beginners mistake ...

.... I cut the same part twice for the back of the top. Whaaaaah! Oh well, you hardly see it, right? And I had no choice (read: no fabric to do it over). In the back I had to add some extra fabric to the puzzel anyway.

Added piece, do you see it?

At the front I used the last remnant of stripe fabric. I let the top of that pattern part coincide with the first black line. I did this before in a t-shirt and a racerback top that I made. This creates a nice transition between the two fabrics. (Watch the video of the t-shirt of below or read about the racerback top via this link.)

 

Construction

The assembly is fairly simple. It was a fun puzzle. The fabric combination works very well. Love it!

I started with the key-hole at the back. With a few extra pins I made sure that the stripes matched during stitching. It is always exciting to sew over pins. Hold your breath

I finished the 'key-hole' with a thin binding strip (2 cm wide) of jersey. I have taken 95% of the circumference of the opening for the length of the binding. The ends were stitched first and I sew the binding on the right side first and then I folded it so that there was an edge of approx. 0.5 cm.

I stitched it with a twin needle. One needle stitched on the binding and the other needle on the back piece. On the inside I just cut off the edge.

With pinning of the side seams I found out that also there the lines match. Happy coincidence!
Before I stitched the sleeves, I finished off the hem with a twin needle.

Try out

Because the pattern wasn't intended for jersey I had to take the dress in here and there. In the side seam under the armholes as much as 2.5 cm!
And also the length had to be a few centimeters shorter, but that is mainly because I am short myself. haha!

For the finishing of the neckline I used a binding made from the 3 different fabrics. I took 80% of each part of the neckline as the length for the binding.

After attaching the neckbinding, I stitched it on the right side in the seam so you (almost) do not see it. I used both black and white thread for this, depending on the surface. Nerd ;-)

It is a super comfy dress, which is really airy because of the 'key-hole'. How many night till summer?!

Do you wonder what I made earlier with the same fabrics? Then take a look at my Instagram.

@madebyliesl