Navy Linen Shirt Dress

I am trying so hard to make more wearable garments for myself. Bright, patterned cotton is super fun to sew with, and pretty fun to wear, but it is not really what you would buy in a shop. Solid navy linen, however, is a classic. A linen dress: sleeveless, cool, classic, easy. Just in time for Winter.

Yes, my last planned make for the Summer dragged on. It was difficult to find the motivation to finish when I knew I wouldn't be wearing it any time soon. Not to mention needing to sew it in bright light and photograph it in full sunlight, scarce to be found at this time of year. But it will be lovely to pull it out on the first nice day next Spring and have it ready to wear.

This is actually a knock off of a dress I saw in a shop window, from a bus. I went back to the website and found it in cream. A very simple, sleeveless shirtwaist with a tie belt and no shaping.

Uniqlo S/S2015

I immediately thought of my last make, Simplicity 2447. I lengthed the hem by as much allowance as I had fabric and ended up chopping off about 15cms. Views A and D are so long, that I only needed to add about 10cms to the length to get a dress. I flared out to a slight A-line shape. I couldn't manage the shaped hem, so I hemmed it straight instead. The Uniqlo dress doesn't have shaping and this pattern has princess seams, so it is different in this respect. I also left off the pocket. I didn't trust myself to work with the linen well enough to do a first class job on it. Patch pockets are one of those finishes that can give away a home made garment. When in doubt, leave it out.

Which brings me on to the fabric, the linen. I went looking for this when on holiday in Vancouver. I had to pay a visit to Fabricana and I spent a wonderful two hours browsing the entire store. I could have spent longer, and I definitely could have spent more money, but I was very happy with what I got. Considering it has taken me two years to work through my previous Vancouver stash builders, I consider the 4 fabrics I left with to be plenty. They had about three different navy linens, so I chose based purely on price. It is quite heavy and has a lot of drape. The warp and weft appear to be black and a bright blue to make up a navy with lovely texture. 2 meters was the perfect amount for this dress.  

I must confess that I didn't find this fabric terribly easy to work with. It moved around a lot. I had to re-cut the yoke because it was so badly off grain that it was completely unusable. It frayed a lot too. I zig zagged the princess seams and french seamed the side and shoulder seams. I got the flat fell seam wrong for the back yoke seam, so I just folded the ends under and stitched them down. I stabilised the shoulder seams with a section of grosgrain ribbon. I changed the pleat in the centre back to a gather. More dress, less shirt.  I pieced the belt and added two belt carriers.

The buttons came from an old shirt, I love the look of the brown with the navy. I seriously considered large, white buttons, but decided that it was far less classic. Fun, but not classic, not in keeping with my primary goal of RTW-type garments. The dress does have a moderately serious boo-boo. The collar stand is seriously off grain. I didn't notice until I had finished it and couldn't get the collar to sit evenly. It is even, but the collar stand pulls it to one side so the one is higher than the other. It is still wearable, but not perfect.

I have never owned a shirt dress before. Whenever I have tried one on in a store, I believe they don't suit me. But I was still keen to make one. I was so pleased with my yellow top, that I didn't mind having another try, in a dress version, and I wear navy more than any other colour. I think the sleeveless version is more suited to me than the traditional shirt dress style with short sleeves.

It is not perfect, but I am pretty pleased with it. It does exactly what I wanted it to do: knock off a RTW linen shirt dress.

Costs:

Linen: £13.00

Pattern: used previously, £0.00

Interfacing: medium £3.60

Ribbon: used previously, £0.00

Thread: stash, £0.00

Buttons: stash, £0.00

Total: £16.60

Compared to: £39.00 for the RTW version.