Made by a Fabricista: Seersucker in Summer

Simplicity 8124

I had a great idea for another summer look to follow up my little white dress from my June post, a mother/daughter dress duo out of classic blue and white seersucker. This seersucker was easy to work with and as a bonus it is 63" wide! I would note two things. 1) Since this fabric is 100_ polyester it doesn't hold a press well 2) It does fray so you will definitely need to serge or otherwise finish your seams.

Vogue 8968 from vogue.mccall.com

My original plan was to create Vogue 8968 for myself and a simple pillowcase dress for my step-daughter. As you can see the above is not a picture of V8968. Let me tell you what happened, lol. The Vogue pattern is a loose-fitting, pullover dress which features a handkerchief hemline and sleeve bands. I cut the front and back on the grain so that the body of the dress features horizontal stripes. I wanted vertical stripes on the hem band and the sleeve cuff so I cut those pieces against the grain.

V8968 You can see the the size small dress pulling across the bust.

I have sewn up V8968 View B in a small previously and it was a little large. So this time I decided to sew an XS. Well that was a EPIC FAIL, I can't even show you the extra small. I decided I had underestimated the amount of ease I needed at the bust for a semi-loose dress. Back to the drawing cutting board. Thank goodness I hadn't cut out the girls pillowcase dress. I recut the front, back and sleeve band pieces in a S. To save fabric I decided I could reuse the XS hemband. Once again I sewed it up and tried it on before finishing my raw hems and again TOO SMALL! And I was and still am pretty bummed about this because other than the pulling I really like this dress.

V8968 You can see the pulling in the back as well.

Where did I go wrong? First, I didn't re-try on the previous dress I had sewn. It was too large last year when I made it but it's possible, more like probable, that I've gained a few pounds. Second, I failed to take the fabric into consideration. The first time I made this dress I used a rayon challis and challis has more drape than a cotton seersucker. That being said this dress has a stiffer look than my prior version.

from www.simpliciity.com

After my fitting fail. I had to change my game plan to bring y'all something presentable. Since off-the-shoulder is all the rage this summer I pulled out the no fail Simplicity 8124. Sticking with my original idea of a dress, I choose View A. Thankfully with some creative pattern piece placing I had just enough fabric left, sadly this meant ditching my mommy and me dress idea for this post (I will still make her one maybe with this red, blue and white seersucker).

S8124

This dress is a very easy sew, with just three pieces simply sew the side seams, sleeve seams and attach the sleeves to the body. After that all that is left the neckline casing and hemming. I did make a modification by changing the full sleeve to a short puff sleeve. To achieve this I simply shortened the sleeve about 5" to mid bicep and added elastic to the hem sleeve.



Though this dress looks great flowy and full, I prefer to wear it belted. I just added this tan elastic belt and white cork heeled sandals for an effortless summer look.

Please learn from my mistakes! Check your body measurements often, consider your fabric and how it behaves and always cut a larger size when in doubt.