Frocktober Elegance: A Chambray Reglisse

My autocorrect tried to change Frocktober to frock toner. This should be an interesting post…

Anyhow, ever since I began sewing again last fall, I have loved pretty much everything from the French pattern company Deer and Doe, yet for some reason I’ve been too scared to make their dresses. I’m not really sure why I have this phobia – they’re just too cute, it’s too good to be true if they’re easy, too? Maybe? I actually had purchased the Reglisse pattern and had my fabric all picked out before I even knew about TMS’s Frocktober challenges, but I’m so glad they chose the Reglisse as one of the contest dresses, because it finally gave me the extra “shove” I needed to steel my nerves and get moving on this dress!

I’ve loved this dress pattern for a long time, and I love my finished project just as much! It’s such an easy dress to wear, with the elastic waistband and loose fit, and yet it still feels so elegant I think it counts as “dressing up.”

For the fabric, I chose a lovely Robert Kaufman dot chambray.
As it turns out, this fabric was a bit tricky to work with – it looks deceptively like a typical medium-weight chambray, but it’s actually very lightweight! So, one of the big challenges for me was figuring out how to finish the seams. Serging just one layer of this fabric on the bias turned out to be a hot mess – the fabric was just too light weight, and the dot weave plus the bias edge meant that there were little threads poking out everywhere. After much deliberation and a video chat with my mom, I determined that the best way to finish the seams on the bias-cut edges was to turn them under and stitch:

When I was working with two or more layers of fabric, the serger did fine, so I used a three-thread overlock stitch for those sections:

I also used bias tape to hem the dress, as recommended in the pattern. I hadn’t done this before, but I loved the technique – it made hemming the deep curve of the circle skirt so much less painful! It also provides a little bit of body to the skirt, which I love. I did let the dress hang for a day or two before hemming, though, instead of hemming the dress right away, as the pattern recommends. With all those bias edges, I wanted to give them time to settle to avoid a wavy hem!

(More pictures and explanation can be found on my blog, Dressing the Role)

Anyhow, I love that this dress is light and flowy, and yet the fabric choice still makes it feel like fall. And thank you, The Monthly Stitch, for lighting a fire under my bum to actually finish it!