Hi everyone! It is the month of love and I am so very excited because love is my favorite language. February is also American Heart Month which is also what inspired the dress that I created. It is so important to spread awareness about heart disease as it affects so many people on a daily basis. I wanted to make a red dress to honor this important month and thankfully I had a beautiful red 3D floral mesh fabric in my stash.
I have had the Rio Ringer Tee pattern from True Bias for a while and actually I was working on a tshirt with that pattern when I thought to myself “maybe I can also use this pattern to make a dress.” I also thought this because honestly I did not want to have to cut another pattern. I used the bodice of the ringer tee without the neckband and sleeve band. For the skirt portion I cut two pieces of fabrics to my preferred length and one and a half the width of my waist. I did the same thing to my lining fabric. However I cut the lining fabric shorter than the mesh fabric piece. I gathered the skirt portion at the waist area using the longest stitch length on my Baby Lock Accord sewing machine and attached it to the bodice. I also used the zig zag stitch to create a clean finish at the edge of the neckline and sleeves of the bodice. On the skirt of the dress I did a rolled hem using the rolled hem feature on my Baby Lock Vibrant serger.
I absolutely loved sewing this dress and putting it on made me feel beautiful and feminine. I love to take a pattern and use it in an unexpected way. It allows me to expand the vision of fellow sewers so that they can learn to look beyond the cover of the pattern paper and push the envelope to get more creative with how they use their patterns. I hope that you have enjoyed this blog post and that I have inspired you all to get creative with your sewing.
Check out more sewing tips and inspiration from Faith St. Jules here.
