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Woohoo! I made a dress! A cool, comfortable, colorful dress! From fabric I designed! And a pattern I drafted!

I am so happy right now. 😁 Absolutely grinning from ear to ear.

Let me back up for a minute.

Jo and I started The Wardrobe Project back in March. For me the problem was that I had very little clothing, and most of the pieces didn’t fit and/or didn’t work with each other, so I pretty much wore the same black yoga pants, black tank top, and black cardigan every day. Click through to that post to see a photo of my daily uniform and an inventory of what was on my closet. Sad.

One of my first steps was actually to buy some new clothing that fit my requirements – comfortable, colorful, and well-made. You can see the two dresses and two pairs of pants I bought here.

I loved that purple dress so much that I decided I would copy it. It’s a pretty simple silhouette with a loose fit, so I thought I could figure it out myself, but then I got a notification that Modern Domestic (my local fabric store) was offering a class called Copy Your Favorite Garment.

I’m so glad I took that class! I learned a ton, and having the teacher there to help me out with some quibbly sleeve stuff and a very weird pocket construction was amazing. Thanks, Colleen!

Here’s the muslin I made in the class.

The muslin had a few problems…

But none of those problems that really affected the pattern, so I forged ahead with the fancy fabric.

It’s my own design, printed on linen that I washed and dried a million six times to get the shrink out.

And now I have a finished dress!

I’m wearing it with pants made by me using the Nocturne Pajamas pattern from Sew Liberated.

You can read about my pants adventures here (accidental pajamas) and here (same pattern, but not looking like pajamas).

I’m even wearing socks I knit myself!

Here are a few detail photos of the dress. It’s even better than the original!

It has pintucks down just the bodice part of the front.

You can also see in this photo that I opted for a neck facing instead of the bound neckline in the original dress.

I switched to a prettier (and easier to construct) pocket.

The original just has a side seam opening. On mine I gave it a pretty curved opening with a nice facing.

In that photo you can also see my seam finishes. They’re all French seams that I topstitched down. Here’s what that looks like from the inside.

I did that on every seam. A lot of people think you can’t do French seams on an armhole, but you can.

So neat and tidy. 🙂

And now I need to make another!

I’ve been wanting a dress I can wear to Portland Thorns games – instead of the too-small jersey I have. 🫤 I think this fabric will be perfect (and something I can wear for everyday, too) so I’m ordering some today.