Hi, guys! Hope you are all well! I’m really excited you to show you my new (by which I mean “month-old” dress) today! I haven’t been good at keeping up with blogging over the last year or so, but I didn’t want this dress to have the same fate as my beloved by never-blogged (or even Instagrammed, WHAT?!) Colfax dress and two Inari dresses (in case I never do blog them, know that I love both patterns and the end results quickly shot up the list to become most-worn garments).
This dress felt like a monumental achievement- I’ve wanted, for maybe 5 years now, to make a special Christmas dress, but every year I get too close to the holiday and run out of time. But when my semester ended a week before Christmas, I dropped everything and got to work on this dress! I’m so pleased that I had something fun and festive to wear on the holiday, but that it doesn’t seem too Christmas-y to wear all winter long.
This pattern is the Grainline Studio Farrow dress, which I find really cute and versatile. I really liked sewing it up- the pockets are constructed in a super clever way that was really satisfying to work through. The pattern pieces for the dress front look really untraditional, but they’re fun to stitch up. I made my usual 1/2″ narrow shoulder alteration, but otherwise sewed it up as is. For the next go-round I’d lengthen the sleeves just a bit, which is something I frequently do.
What WASN’T fun was sewing this dress up in plaid. Ahahahahaha… I was sewing on a deadline, so, obviously, the best thing to do was to use plaid for something with a center front seam and pockets sewn into a waist seam. Ooh boy… cutting this out took forever, and pinning it, and stitching it super slowly with my walking foot. OK, the whole thing was super slow! I matched the pieces for the dress front first, but then I started to get stressed about running out of fabric, so I eliminated the waist seam on the back pieces to conserve fabric and time.
The fabric is this Robert Kaufman Mammoth Flannel (Amazon affiliate link). I was digging around in my stash for something suitable in a sufficient quantity for this pattern, but when I had nothing, it dawned on me that I could use an Amazon gift card for fabric! It was really hard to decide which plaid to use, but I’m glad that I went with this one in the end. I really like the fabric- it’s very thick and squishy, with crepe-like twisted yarns that give it a nice textured feel. It’s very warm and nice, which I appreciate in a winter dress. It feels thicker to me than normal flannel, so keep that in mind if you are going to make something with lots of layers of fabric. I had to grade the seams really aggressively at some points, like where the center front seam meets the pockets, to keep things from getting too lumpy.
Overall, I’m really happy with this dress. It’s cozy and casual, but I can also imagine making a dressier version out of silk or wool crepe. Make one!
The perils of shooting photos in the wind!
