Well, I’ve finally finished sewing my first dress! I chose the Colette Pattern’s Laurel for my first go at dressmaking. The simple shift dress was easy enough for a beginner and still provided a few fun challenges.
The thing I’m most proud of on this dress, you can’t even see! It’s an invisible zipper! It took me a long time to get the courage to give this a go. I kept putting it off. In the end, I don’t know why I stressed about it so much. It wasn’t bad at all. I found this YouTube tutorial by Professor Pinsushion very helpful as she clearly explains how to use a universal zipper foot, which can look pretty intimidating! I also found the tutorials at Megan Nielsen and Colette Patterns to be great resources too.
My zipper is not perfect. You can tell from the picture that I placed it down a little too far and there is a little gap at the top, but it didn’t bother me enough to want to redo the zipper. In fact, to me it almost looks like a little cut out (or so I tell myself… lol!), and since I wear my hair down most of the time, it will almost always be concealed.
I wanted an easy, breezy dress that wasn’t too fitted, so I cut a straight size 4 from the pattern, but probably could have gone with a size 2. Next time, I’ll make it in a smaller size or at least trim down the hips some.
I think my favorite part of this dress is the flirty ruffled sleeves. It really adds an extra something to such a simple dress.
Project Details:
Pattern: Colette Patterns, Laurel Dress
Fabric: London Calling Lawn in Floral Sorbet (Similar to the one I used in my Sorbetto top.)
Time: Okay, it took me a month, but I had to order an invisible zipper foot and get up the courage to put in the zipper. More advanced seamstresses could probably make this in a weekend.
Skills: Setting sleeves, creating ruffles, hand stitching the hem, inserting an invisible zipper, bias tape
Difficulty: Perfect for a beginner who is ready to try new skills.
I really love this dress! It is so easy to throw on and has such a great classic look to it. There are lots of variations you can do with the Laurel Pattern, so you can really mix it up. I’m planning to make a few different styles of it for myself. In fact, I’ve still got the striped fabric I mentioned in this post that I need to put to good use…. hmmmmm…. 🙂
So, What have you guys been making lately?
P.S. Like my beaded necklace? I did a tutorial on how to make one here.