A Sunny Day Dress

I’ve finally completed my Alexander Dress from Grosgrain’s ‘A Frock By Friday’.  This is not an easy dress to sew so I loved the challenge of tackling it. It’s the first time I learnt I could cut open a dart, gather one side of it, sew it back to create cute sleeves like these. Grosgrain’s detailed and clear sewalong instructions made constructing this easier.

The sewing pattern for the bodice came from burdastyle’s Alexander Blouse.

I normally sew using a size 38 pattern but for this dress, I used a size 36. I elongated the center front seams by 1″ each, dropped the waistline by 2″ and lengthen the peplum by 4″, so it would hit the hips. I also added a fire engine red bias to the waistline before attaching the peplum as I thought that would accentuate the waistline and it would go well with the huge red buttons I used.

I didn’t use the free McCall pattern recommended by Grosgrain but the skirt pattern from a vintage sewing pattern. My overused vintage butterick B5032.

I thought they looked rather similar, but my vintage version might be narrower and I could save some trees 🙂 However, I did shorten the length and change all pleats to darts at the top of the skirt. The skirt is lined as cotton voile is a little sheer.

For the back of the dress, I used an invisible zipper but it does not start from the top but around chest level at the back. The top has a hidden button attachment (Are they called press studs?).

The fabric is from Anna Maria Horner’s collection and is extremely comfortable to wear. My favourite part of it is the front bodice with the pleats and red buttons.

I hope you like it too.

My weekend starts tomorrow as it is a public holiday in Singapore, so happy weekend in advance!

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