Stress Sewing: T-Shirt Dress

You ever find yourself in an inexplicably bad mood, where you're just sad for no reason whatsoever and you have to do something fun or creative to maybe jumpstart your mood into not being terrible again? That's where I was last night and that's where this dress came from. I wanted something simple, something quick, and something that'd be crazy comfortable, while also using some new techniques or at least a new something. I think this hit all of those nails on the proverbial head.

I do love me some horizontal stripes but please hold your prison inmate jokes until the end of the post.

Okay, I entirely recognize that this doesn't look like much on the hanger, but I'm really quite pleased with it, numerous flaws and all. I used Dixie DIY's T-Shirt Minidress pattern, as I had it lurking in my bookmarks of "cute free highly wearable patterns" and this blue and white lace striped knit lurking in my stash begging to be made into a dress. I lengthened the hem pretty significantly (by six of the stripes on the fabric, which probably translates to approximately six inches) and lengthened the sleeves a bit, because I wanted it to be more cold-weather appropriate... although considering how thin the fabric itself is, it's still probably going to be relegated to late spring/early fall. I didn't fuss with trying to match the stripes at the side seams, as, again, I wanted a quick project to maybe brighten my mood, although hilariously it seems that I matched them up perfectly- if I was going for an offset match on the stripes, anyway! It's kind of a fun look even though it's blatantly wrong, actually.

(I was going to leave a comment on that blog post about my making this dress, but I chickened out when I saw the last comment was from 10 months ago...! I suppose the pattern IS 2+ years old.)

Avert thine eyes, gaze not upon... whatever this mess is supposed to be

The less said about the collar, though, the better. I'm really not sure what I was thinking when I attached it, as I just did it blatantly wrong and figured out how I should've done it about ten seconds after botching it. I considered ripping it out and starting anew, but ultimately decided that was a bit more effort than I cared to expend at that precise moment. That's what cute scarves are for?

Outside of lengthening the sleeves and hem, I also cut between sizes. I wanted a more fitted dress  rather than the slightly oversized look of the pattern itself, so I cut a medium for the top and tapered out to a large on the bottom, as those were the sizes that best matched my measurements. I kind of eyeballed where to start shifting from medium to large on the pattern and hoped for the best, which sounds like a pretty shoddy way of doing things but actually worked out rather perfectly.

Worn shot, guest starring my overflowing fabric stash bag and my solar system socks. Someday, I will rope someone else into taking multiple photos at multiple angles, but that day is not this one.

When worn, the problems with the collar aren't really visible at all, and I lovelovelove the way the sleeves came out. The way I hemmed them (just with a zigzag stitch- everything is zigzag here, using my plain ol' sewing machine, although I did indeed swap in a ballpoint needle) gives them this lovely ruffle-y effect. I do still wish the fabric were less see-through, although weirdly enough when worn that's less of a problem- you can kind of see my obnoxiously blue sports bra in that worn photo, but when worn with sane white or beige underwear I actually don't think it'd be much of a problem.

 I love simple, comfortable dresses like this, so I can definitely see myself whipping up an army of them in various hem and sleeve lengths and with different necklines, especially since it was just plain easy. Seriously, this dress came together in 3 hours, starting with uncut fabric and a pattern that wasn't even taped together yet. Knits are the magic promised land of no crazy darts yet splendidly fitted results. I already have a list going of wishlist knits for my next one, although I am making a conscious effort to not only buy striped fabric for it. I know some people can't abide the thought of wearing horizontal stripes, but I am very far from one of those people.

I still have about a yard and a half of this fabric left (it was on sale for $2 a yard at Hancock, and I'm now kicking myself for not grabbing some of the other colors) so I might try making a hoodie or a loose billowy vest with the leftovers. It's just so soft, I have to put it to use somehow.

And yes, you may be wondering, my mood did improve slightly after finishing this project and I'm definitely in a better mood now. I also am still working on the Alice dress but stalling like a boss on actually making the bias tape- I'll keep you posted on that.