The Lazy Saturday Maxi Dress: A Pattern Hybrid

It's Selfish Sewing Week over at Imagine Gnats, and I decided it was high time I did a bit more sewing for myself.  So, I busted out some ITY knit that I've had in my stash, and a couple of my favorite self drafted patterns, and created this super comfortable knit maxi dress.  I LOVE it.

  

First off, you can find the two projects that I combined to make this dress on my blog:  The Easy as Pie Tank Pattern was used to draft the neckline and arms, and the Lazy Saturday Shirt  uses a similar technique to shirr the extra material in the width of the dress. You can find my more information on the shirring technique used, here and here.

The Easy As Pie Tank has a dart included in the pattern, I didn't change that.  The shirring pulled in the extra material from the dart.  Using an existing maxi dress as a guide, I determined how long, and wide  I wanted my dress to be, and cut my fabric accordingly. 

  

I finished off the neck and arms using a technique similar to attaching ribbing.  The only difference was that my ITY knit didn't have quite as much stretch as my typical ribbed knits, so I used longer strips to finish them off?  Lost?  I'll have to do a ribbed knit technique tutorial in the future.  

The shirring pulls the dress in at the waist, and gives the dress a bit more shape.  After sewing up the dress, at the side and shoulder seams, I tried the dress on, and decided where I wanted my first row to start.  It was really a sew as you go type project.  The important thing to remember is that you don't want your shirred rows to start too high (like my Lazy Saturday Shirt), or the rows will be crawling up your bust.

This was a super quick sew, and well worth the time and material.  I love the finished product.  It might be the only selfish sewing project of the week, but I'm happy with it, so that is a win!