FrankenIndie – SpringMa by Offsquare.com

Hello sewing peeps! I’m Katrina from Offsquare.com.

My sister Kelly is off overseas and needs modest dresses for some conservative destinations (which is surprisingly hard to shop for), so I wanted to help boost her wardrobe for the many adventures ahead.

 

The fashion rules are essentially “no shoulders, no knees and no skin in between”. Challenge accepted.

I combined the Saltspring Dress (Sewaholic) with the upper portion of the Sigma Dress (Papercut Patterns) to create a short sleeved maxi dress. It’s called: the “SpringMa”. Modest, feminine and cool.

I love good pockets in a dress. Every dress needs decent pockets.

A lightweight cotton fabric was used (courtesy of Rosie Miller. Thanks Rosie!) for the dress and bodice lining. The skirt, though, was lined with a charcoal coloured cotton fabric (pretty much because we didn’t have enough of the teal fabric to line the entire dress. And the darker colour will help block light through the legs).

There are french seams throughout the dress, which did add a bit of bulk. At the end of it I had vowed to buy myself an overlocker. There are some long seams in there! I also gave in and handstitched the bodice lining to the sleeves because my brain stopped working and I just couldn’t work out the best way to put it all together.

Otherwise, the dress came together surprisingly well and having made a Saltspring dress already, it was familiar territory. Kelly didn’t need any pattern adjustments made (eg no sway back, sloping shoulders etc. Hooray!) and we put my previous Saltspring dress on her as a sizing guide before starting.

Oh, and I always cinch in the top layer of the bodice a little at the waist so it hugs the figure slightly. Just a centimetre or two makes all the difference between boxy and flattering.

A handy tip for sewing zips, which I always do with standard zips now, is to baste the seam shut before sewing the zip in place and then unpicking the basted seam when you’re finished. A perfect finish every time! But you probably already knew that. I just wish I’d known that while I was still learning … it would have saved me hours of unpicking and frustration.

Katrina xo

More of my sewing & refashioning can be found at Offsquare.com