Sewing Casual-chic dress tutorial (patterns included)

Hello everyone ! While the summer is still up (here in France it took its sweet time to arrive !), here is a little tutorial for a nice and chic summer dress.

It's inspired by Tsumori Chisato's collection for Resort 2013. I used this dress as a reference, the whole collection can be found here.





This is the dress we're gonna make, with gathered sleeves and low bare-back.

PATTERN​

I scanned the one I used and precised the dimensions. Sorry non-metric-system guys. It can be adapted to the measurements of your doll without any problem. Here, the pattern is cut for SD girls, especially Dollstown 15 years body.

The pattern consists in five pieces : one front, one back to cut double, one back neckline, one sleeve to cut double, and one skirt to cut double.


Front


Back
The rectangle will be folded according to the line, therefore you must be careful that the smaller sides match when folded. The biggest side doesn’t need a sewing allowance, it will be directly oversewn.


Back neckline
The curve is the same as in the front piece. The back collar will be sewn with the front precisely on this neckline. Then, it will be folded onto the back, to finir the neckhole without using a hem. The whole bottom side doesn’t need a seam allowance, it will be directly oversewn.


Sleeve
The curves are the same as the armholes in the front and back piece.

For the skirt, draw a rectangle 30cm long and 7,5cm wide. It will be gathered to 15cm.

CUT​

This is how I cut the dress, but it can be plenty of other options. It had only a little fabric dandelion-dyed, so it put the tow backs like this to gain room. You can put them both with the bottom side perpendicular to the selvages. The important thing is to keep the longest side, the one that will be folded, in the diagonal of the fabric.

The pattern shows very short sleeves. To be confrotable, cut more in the bottom, and you will set the length when you do the sleeve hems.

It’s important to cut the skirt in biais, to get a nice fabric flow.

THE FUN PART​

Oversew the biggest side of the backs and of the back neck.


On the right side of the fabric, paint the flower with textile paint. You can tack the seam lines to help you seeing what goes where. Allow to dry completely before you iron it.


Fold the back according to the line, secure it with pins and iron. First, give a stroke on the edge, take off the pins and iron the rest.


Pin and stitch the darts on the front piece.

 

Put the back neckpiece on the neckline. The right side touches the right side. Stitch. Notch the curved parts, recut the surplus if necessary. Oversew.


Turn the back neck piece over, secure with pins, iron. You now have a clean and neat neckline ! While you’re at it, iron the darts with the surplus towards the top.


Gather th skirts to 15cm. Stitch in the surplus, to keep the folds neat.


Sew the skirt with the front piece. Oversew together.


Tack the back pieces according to the drawing.


This way, it’s much easier to sew the second skirt piece and the backs together. Remove tacking thread. Oversew together.


Iron the new seams, with the surplus towards the top.


Stitch the shoulder seams, and be careful you don’t go against the way of the folded pieces.


Iron the new seams with the surplus towards the back.


Stitch the side seams in two steps, changing the color of the thread. Be careful and put the top-skirt seam in front of the other. Oversew.


While you have the pink thread, do the skirt hem. Roll the fabric to the lline, pin, stitch, iron.

 

Now is the moment I always dread : the SLEEVES. Stitch the sides, oversew, iron.


Get the gathering thread ready, stitch from the half of the curve to the other half on the other side. You will pull the thread and gather only at the last moment.


Put the sleeve against the armhole lines. The right side of the dress touches the right side of the sleeve. Pin starting with the bottom, gather the top of the sleeve to finish pinnig.


Tack the sleeve, or else you won’t be able to sew decently with the machine. By tacking, you secure the sleeve and keep it flexible. Stitch. Remove the tacking thread.


Notch, recut the surplus if necessary, oversew.


Only the sleeve hem left ! Roll the fabric to the desired length, pin, tack (same reasons as before) and stitch.

Now repeat with the other sleeve and voilà !



I hope everything was understandable...

 

Thank you very much you guys !

I'm glad you like it There is never enough tutorials for simple casual stuff around here !