Making a red and white striped button-down dress

The past couple days I've been working on the American Pastoral dress. Actually, it only took me an afternoon to make the whole dress and several nights after that to slowly but surely sew on all the buttons. Buttons are a pain, but such a lovely accent detail, don't you think?

The dress is from Built By Wendy Dress (of course) and she calls it American Pastoral and recommends off-shite mattress ticking with navy pinstripes but, since I used fabric with slightly thicker red and white vertical stripes, I'm apt to call it my candy striper dress, or else my popcorn bucket dress.

Anyhow, here's how I made it...

First, I sewed the yoke pieces to the front pieces. It was Wendy's idea to cut out the yoke so that the stripes would be horizontal. Isn't it cute that way? I love the contrast.

Then, I sewed the shoulder seams and the darts

I then sewed the sleeve caps to the shoulders and sewed the sleeve lengths along with the side

Next I hemmed the bottom and the sleeves by first pressed a turn-up allowance and then topstitching it.

To make a Mandarin collar, I stitched a long, thin tube, turned it right-side out (this part took a lot of time and even more patience), and stitched the ends closed.

After sewing the Mandarin collar to the neckline, I pressed it.

I then folded two one-inch allowances down the front of the dress and topstitched them, and then sewed ten evenly-spaced buttonholes. I made two small changing in the pattern here. The first is that I used ten buttons instead of nine. Frankly, ten is almost too few. The second change was sewing the button holes on the left (traditional in menswear) instead of the right (traditional in womenswear). This is just a personal preference thing. I like mens shirts.

I sewed red buttons evenly spaced to line up with the button holes. A ruler is of critical importance in spacing buttons and buttonholes, and I have this great clear one for pattern making.


And finally, here's the finished product:

And here's me wearing it today! . . .

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Making Baja Dress and Bold Shoulders Dress

Over the last couple days I made two more dresses: the Bold Shoulders and the Baja Dress.

First, I traced basic pattern pieces onto brown paper and made the adjustments for these specific dress shapes.

Bold Shoulders adjustments:

Baja Dress adjustments:

Then I cut out the fabric: lace and navy silk for the Bold Shoulders and soft Mexican-ish print for the Baja Dress.

I made the Bold Shoulders first. Here's how...

First I sewed darts in the front piece.

After sewing the front to the back at the sides and shoulder, I hemmed the dress.

Then I made bias tape from the same lace fabric and sewed it to the raw edges of the neckline and the armhole.

Finished product:

I did the exact same thing with the navy silk except that the shoulder was on the other side. The finished project was meant to be worn with the lace under the silk, but I think it looks even cuter with the lace on top.

Here it is both ways...

I've been sewing at my parent's house with her nice machine, but between the Bold Shoulders and the Baja Dress, I moved my less-nice machine to my apartment and started sewing here. There's not much room, but I sew too often to keep making the trek.

Here's how I made the Baja Dress.

First, I sewed the back pieces together.

Then, I sewed the raglan sleeves to the front part.

I hemmed the angled parts of the kangaroo pocket and ironed down the other edges.

Then I found the best placement for the pocket by putting the dress over my head and marking with a pin how high I wanted it and using a measuring tape to find the exact center.

After pinning, I topstitched the pocket to the dress's front.

Then, I stitched the sides all the way from the hem up and down the sleeves.

I then hemmed the bottom and the sleeves.

I pinned the collar pieces together right sides together and sewed around the outside.

Then I turned it right-side-out and ironed it smooth.

I pinned the collar to the right side of the dress and sewed.

Then, I tacked down the two 15" lengths of cotton chord under the collar.

I laid the facing piece overtop of the collar on the right side of the neck opening, sewed it, turned it under and pressed it with the iron.

I then topstitched around the edge to finish. This is what the directions told me to do. If I had my druthers, I would have done a full facing (not just in front), avoiding the topstitching and creating a cleaner edge, but I didn't have enough scraps of the fabric to do so, so I just followed the directions.

Here's the finished dress.

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