[Note] Hello - this is an old post that I’ve moved over from my Tumblr. I’ve just copied the words and pictures across.
It’s so damn hot today. The kind of heat I try to imagine through the winter but can’t. The kind of heat where I avoid watching telly because it will make the room hotter and it’s already so hot that I’m stuck to the sofa. Lucky for me I have just finished Grainline’s latest pattern, the Alder Shirtdress. This was a joy to sew. All the fun of a shirt but without having to bother with setting sleeves and sewing plackets, neither of which I’m very good at.
For some reason I goofed somewhere along the way and, when I had finished sewing, the front was about an inch shorter than the back. Either I added the bust darts incorrectly or the back piece of the pattern moved when I was tracing it making it longer than it should have been. Jen is going to do a sew-along for this on the Grainline blog so I’ll be paying close attention to the darts day to figure this out.
Pattern I cut a straight size 14/US 10. The horror of sewing a dress for the first time is realising my measurements span 4 different dress sizes. I picked the middle-ish size rather than bothering with altering the pattern to fit me across all of them, though I might try that for future versions. As usual for Grainline this pattern has a lot of room to move around in so I needn’t have worried about it being too small across the hips. Unusually for me, I didn’t bother lengthening this pattern. Since it’s for summer I figured it’s fine if it comes up a bit short.
Fabric I bought this fabric from Minerva crafts after hearing about them from Yes I like that. It’s a medium weight printed stretch cotton, pretty easy to sew although I did break TWO sewing machine needles on this project. It was £12 a metre which seems like a pretty good deal to me. I had a quick google to see what other people are making with this fabric and came across this beautiful dress.
The buttons are from The Cloth House on Berwick St. They are clearly really cheaply made (there are lots of weird swirls and seams from a very quick injection molding process) but I think the cheapness is a pretty good match for this fabric.
I’m very excited to see some other Alder shirt-dresses make it into the wild, I already have my second one planned.
