Yellow Floral Ebony Dress
Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend, the weather has been so wonderful here in Jersey it's a huge motivation to sew spring & summer! I have a quick project I want to share this morning!
On Thursday, I heard that the weather for Easter Sunday was supposed to be in the 80s. I had an outfit planned out, but it was not warm weather appropriate. So Friday morning I decided to make a new outfit! Two weeks ago I took a trip to JoAnn Fabrics and browsed fabric for about half an hour. I had been on the hunt for a pretty floral spring knit to make a casual dress but hadn't been finding anything online. JoAnn's had a few options but I really didn't want something thin, and all the thicker knits were black! There was one yellow floral print that caught my attention, but resisted buying because it only had 7% spandex, which would limit my use.
A week and a half passed and I found myself thinking about that one floral print every day. I couldn't get it out of my mind! So Friday evening, I headed back over to JoAnn's after work and bought the fabric. A word of advice, if you fall in love with fabric, buy it. If it's something you think you can use and would enjoy wearing, get it!
I decided to make Closet Case Patterns Ebony Tee with the print! This pattern comes with so many options and I can't wait to make a tee version! I loved Heather's hack (yea, she hacked her own pattern!) of the raglan sleeve with the dress and used her tutorial to get the pattern.
Ebony is a very quick sew. I printed & taped the pattern, cut out the fabric and sewed the dress together Saturday night. I worked from about 8 pm to 12 am, so four hours to get a dress is pretty good timing!
The fabric I used was some sort of rayon/spandex blend, I really have to start taking pictures of the bolt information when buying in person. One of the problems with buying knits is how lightweight they can be and when making a dress, the last thing you want is for it to be see-through. This material was thicker, and has a nice white back, so even though the print itself is lightly colored, it isn't see-through. I had an issue when attaching the neck binding because the fabric lacked the stretch for the collar. To fix this, I cut the neck binding longer than required, and it seemed to work out well. The neck is a little tight when putting the dress on, but still comfortable to wear.
I cut out a size 4 in Ebony. In Closet Case Patterns, I usually cut a size 2 but got really nervous when looking at the finished bust measurements for this dress so I cut the 4. Finished measurements are so important to look at guys! The body is very roomy in the four but that's the look of the dress, and I'm happy my boobs have a little room to breathe! If I make this again in a stretchier fabric, I might go down in size, but this version is super comfy! I took about 3" from the hem, any longer and this style could look matronly on a petite person.
I had a wonderful Easter Sunday! My Mom and Dad set up an Easter Egg Hunt, and even though all us kids are in our late 20s, it was still fun. My niece is 6 months old now and it is so exciting to watch her grow- and she looked adorable in her Easter Dress! We also spent time with Drew's family, so it was a long day but very nice to see everyone!
Ebony is also great belted! Have a wonderful week!