Karen Drape Dress by Maria Denmark

I made a new dress today!

I was only going to pin and baste the pleats. Truly! But I went with the flow and by the end of the day, I had a new dress.

How about a wide eyed round of applause for how organised I am for Autumn sewing. I am not known for my well planned seasonal wardrobe, as my yet-to-be-posted Spring Coat will prove.

But back to Karen. I made an annual pilgrimage to Fabricana in Vancouver, despite having not sewn everything I bought last July. (OK, one out of four was sewn.) I went a bit crazy and bought lots of stuff. I was looking for apparel fabrics and I even left a quilting border print behind, saying to the sales assistant, from behind a tower of bolts of fabric, "I have to tell my husband I didn't buy everything I wanted."

This black textured knit literally fell off the bolt into my arms. I already had another knit picked out but asked if there was a discount for the bolt end and they gave me the remainder for the price of 1m. There was almost 1.5m on the bolt so that was good enough for me to go ahead and add it to the pile.

It must be pure polyester, but it washes easily and has good stretch and recovery. The textured surface means it is forgiving to wear, giving it some weight and not showing every lump and bump underneath. 

I wasn't planning to make it up first from my Vancouver haul, but I already knew it would be a great Karen Drape Dress from Maria Denmark. Then Maria went and had a birthday sale so I snapped up the pattern. Now I had the fabric, the pattern and the overlocker, plus thread.

Maria helpfully included an A3 print version of the pattern, which I really appreciated. So much quicker to print out and tape together. What I got seriously wrong was that I didn't read the instructions first, nor look at all the pieces of the pattern sheets before I got cutting. When I got to the big red caps saying SEAM ALLOWANCES NOT INCLUDED, I was a bit put out. I hate having to add my own seam allowances to patterns. I worry about getting them wrong and not matching up properly. I am not a pattern drafter, that is why I buy patterns. Please Maria, could you add seam allowances to the Karen? 

Since I had already decided on my size (S) and cut out to that size at the same time, I could only add seam allowances to part of the front piece. And hems, what about hems??

So I didn't make the dress from scratch today. I spent one evening assembling and cutting out the pattern pieces, all three of them, and one evening cutting out the fabric. To make the pleats through the front, the pattern piece is curved with the skirt on the straight grain and the front bodice on the diagonal. This fabric's texture gives it the appearance of vertical lines and I wondered if it would look odd on the diagonal. But you can barely see it - black is very forgiving, so I went with it. Mine is also quite thick and stable.

I shortened the waist by 1 inch, including the diagonal waist line on the front. I didn't bother to change the pleat placement accordingly, and they have worked out looking even. I also lengthened the hem slightly. I added length to the sleeves, but decided at the end that a bit of wrist looked better than a severe black dress, so I chopped them off again. I stabilised the shoulder seams with ribbons, going for it with hot pink!

After I had re-threaded my new overlocker, and figuring out how to stop the fabric edges from flaring out, I had to summon all my courage to get on and attach the sleeves using the overlocker. I have been using it, but only for seam finishes. I have a bad habit of cutting the fabric any time I use it on a curve, so I was really nervous that I would cut my lovely dress. But I didn't. I went ahead and sewed the whole thing. 

The neckline gave me a bit of trouble. I used clear elastic, but I didn't realise how hard I had to stretch it going in, so the back was very loose and wavy. I tried again, twice, but it wasn't working well and I was starting to stretch the fabric too. I used ordinary elastic in the end, and it worked well too. I didn't attach and then fold over. My machine couldn't manage that with the clear elastic. I just folded the elastic inside and then zig zagged the whole thing down. The white elastic is peeking out in places, but unpicking black thread from black textured fabric is not good for my eyes, even in full sun, so I am calling it done. With something like a thin jersey, stay stitching the neckline would be a good idea.

I zig zagged the hems on the sleeves and the hem too. The sleeves worked great, but the hem is waving out slightly.

I wanted to pull the under bust section in by 4cm. But I didn't. Maybe leave out the top pleat? Maybe it's just the fabric. It looks a bit baggy under my left boob, but I'll leave it. The boob, and the baggy.

Photographing the details of a black dress is utterly impossible. Making the most of the bright sunshine, I grabbed these pics. I had to blow out the detail shot and the full shots have my shadow in the background, messing up the outline. But it is the best I can do. Who knows if we will have another sunny day in 2016. There is no point photographing it on the hangar, it just looks like a saggy nothing. It is much better on.

And I do love wearing it. It's dressy, it's comfortable, it's smart and it is totally "me". I have never made anything like it before, but I have about 5 similar in my wardrobe already, so I know it is going to be a new favourite.

Costs:
 Fabric: £6.87
 Pattern: £6
 Thread: £7.50
 Notions: Elastic 17p
Total: £20.54