New Dress! The Littlest Studio: Free Dress Pattern

Friends! I made this dress! I made this dress with a friend in an afternoon!

I was trying this whole brown shoes with black clothes thing.
Please excuse the weirdness.

When digging for projects on Pinterest I immediately put this looker on the fast track. My friend, Veronica, has mentioned she would like to learn more about machine sewing and I thought this easy pattern would be a great start to give her, and myself, confidence. Its only four pieces and you get a pattern for the extremely flattering circle skirt, which you can use with a bunch of bodices and blouses. Super useful.

Veronica and I picked a Saturday to have a sewathon. I printed the pattern from The Littlest Studio. We made a trip to JoAnn Fabrics to buy material and got excited. The Saturday came and I packed my machine up and went over to her place. (Speaking of, I love my travel box. I have moved so much and I don't have a dedicated sewing area so being able to protect my expensive machine is marvelously useful.)

Cutting the pattern pieces is a snap. And ponte, the fabric that we used, doesn't fray so hemming is much easier. Ponte is like a heavier, yoga pant-like fabric that smoothes out your figure and keeps it in place. I love it and I want to make everything out of it. Even my husband noticed the weight. It gives the skirt a beautiful drape. The Littlest Studio gives a rundown on stretch stitches which is very helpful for begining stitchers. Veronica and I used a zigzag stitch because her machine had that as its only stretch stitch option and I think that our sturdy material didn't need a more delicate stitch. However I recommend taking a scrap piece of fabric and making that decision for yourself. This pattern calls for elastic to stabalize the weight of the fabric. We thought about skipping this step but don't! It is very worth it especially with ponte.

Another lovely aspect of this pattern is that it gives you a handy pattern to figure out the waist cut out. You can easily draft your own circle skirt pattern by figuring out the circumference of your waist or just use this extemely simple pattern. Woot.

I own a dress that looks just like this from H&M. That dress is made of crap material and pilled right away. I had to make darts in the bust to better fit me anyway! So I spent the same amount of money, around $25, on good material and about 4 hours of my own time to make a dress that I'll keep for years as opposed to the H&M dress which looks like garbage and was probably made in a sweatshop.

This project is a total win! I love it and I feel pretty in it. And the skirt twirl is exceptional!

BK