I want to make an awesome winter dress for I visited the market and I was actually looking for some wool to make myself a winter coat but I couldn't really find any that was thick enough to make a coat out of I think it's a bit too early in the year still. So I'll go back in a couple of weeks hope they have some thicker wools then but I did find this in the new collection in one of the stores and I just fell in love with this pattern the color everything is so beautiful, it's nice and thick The only thing is it is a rather nasty polyester fabric.
Which I am a little bit sad about and if it wasn't this beautiful I would not have bought it but whether this is actually the wearable will remain to be seen this might be one of those horribly sweaty fabrics. That you just wear once and then it's stinky forever but we'll see I'm using it for practice anyway because you know still gearing up for my big project the wedding dress. I have made a little start on and I do also already have my fabric. Which I am so excited about but you'll see more on that when the time comes. So I want to make this kind of in-between project a beautiful awesome dress. I found some photos online of a dress. That I really love and I think it's actually off of aliexpress or something like that because i found maybe five or six different websites that sell it with the same photos.
Yeah, it's one of those dresses but it's actually really pretty. So I thought I would um use it as an inspiration and recreate something similar to my fabric right here. I am hoping for this to become a really nice cozy warm dress. That I can wear in ultimate winter a few challenges in this one I am going to be making long sleeves for I think the first time. I normally don't do sleeves that are longer than elbow length because I'm not entirely sure how to deal with elbows and I'm still not so we'll just have to wait and see how that works out also. I want to make a collar and I have done that once before but on a pattern that was bought. I have never drafted my own color. So that's going to be a little challenge as well other than that everything else.
I've already done before body bodice with buttons gonna try and make a circle skirt hope. I have enough fabric for that if it turns out. I don't have enough fabric I think the sleeves are gonna be the first thing. I sacrifice and I might just make it sleeveless and wear you know sweaters or maybe blouses underneath. I think that might help with the sweatiness of the fabric as well I think, I'm gonna cut out the bodice pieces first I have this mock-up pattern thingy here that I drafted for a dress a long time ago. I believe I made this for the green linen dress the cottage core one and I like this, this is a good pattern. So I think I'm just gonna use this again do it in this fabric and then try and attach sleeves to it. I did also try and make a sleeve mock-up but it wasn't the best.
So I'm gonna have to play around with that a little bit more and I will try and use my dress form in this project okay. That's enough talking for now let's get started cutting out some fabric. I'm trying to do this back dart here but I'm honestly thinking I might just cut down the center back and do a back zipper even though. I want to do a collar I was thinking at first it might be a bit of a problem. I could do one of those colors that kind of just you know is symmetrical front and back and then have a zipper in the back. So I did get a very long zipper that is long enough to be a back zipper. So i might actually do that i think that'll be easier than basically doing the same thing anyway because i have a back dart. So I think I'm actually just gonna cut it along this line and just have it be a center seam. I think that might be better any way I'm really really happy with my dress form here.
This is the first time I actually get to use it on a project and I really like how I can kind of pre-make the darts I will of course try it on on myself first. I think before maybe before I even cut the back to check if everything's good but I really like that I was able to do this without having it on seems much easier. That way so far so good let's try this on and then decide what to do with the back just interrupting the article for a little bit there to talk about today's sponsor because this video is currently sponsored by skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for creative and curious people. where you can explore new skills develop existing interests and get lost in creativity.
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I have cut out a beautiful circle skirt that I am very happy with and I should have just about enough fabric left to make two sleeves this should be enough for two long sleeves. I am very nervous about sleeves so I think I am for this part going to adapt an existing pattern. I'm gonna use this sleeve pattern here this is from the simple pattern that I used for the green schweswer fabric dress. That I made I'm just gonna try and lengthen this and hope that that works. I think I'm gonna do in this case a mock-up first, I don't like doing mock-ups I don't know I think for me it kind of takes the fun out of sewing a little bit I like experimenting with the real thing but in this case. When it comes to sleeves I am gonna do a mock-up because I don't have any extra fabric.
This is all I have left and some scraps that is just enough to make the collar hopefully but yes. I'm gonna have to do it right the first time. So I'm gonna try and mock up first and uh we'll see how that goes. I think I have the right measurements I'm gonna take my measurements on the inner part of the arm up until here make sure to leave enough room around here I might do a button on the cuffs but I'm not sure about that okay mock-up time yesterday I based it together all the parts of the bodies including the bust darts here. So I'm just gonna sew all of this together now my sewing machine is back out again so I'm just gonna sew all of this up and I also have my sleeve mock-up and I think with a couple of small adjustments that I know where to make now this will be good enough. So I'm just going to transfer this onto the fabric and then attach the sleeves as well and then honestly oh the collar let's not forget about the colony to the collar and then it's putting in the zipper finishing the seams and I'll be done can't be that simple. I'm sure something's gonna go wrong at some point but for now, we're still doing it oh, and of course the buttons but I'm gonna do fake buttons again because there will be a zipper down the back fake buttons, all the way don't wanna make buttonholes again all right, let's start sewing.
I decided pretty much on a whim I was feeling adventurous to do this thingy to the end of my sleeves. Where I make a bit of a slit so I kind of just rolled the seam allowance and made this rolled hem on both sides and then I just um did the cuff. So well it's not really a cuff it's more of a hem really but yeah so here is my finished sleeve. I am very happy with it I am undecided as of yet whether I will leave this open or close it with some type of button or other closure but I'm gonna set in the sleeves now into the bodice and then I'm gonna try it on and pray. That it looks good and then we can put in the skirt okay. I am very happy with how the sleeves turn out. I think I'm gonna leave those for now so I have moved on to the front of the bodice. I put on the dress so that I could determine the shape because that is of course another point.
Where I can kind of shape the dress and I try to mark out where my buttons need to go so I have these little white dots along the front and I think I'm just going to attach buttons there now just any buttons. I can find honestly if I don't have the right ones and I'll just pick out some light ones nice ones later but I need to close at least one side either the front or the back before I can proceed to do the collar and skirt. So I'm just gonna sew on the fake buttons and go from there it's a new day and I am trying to figure out how bothered. I am by the fact that this doesn't exactly line up but I think the difference is small enough. That I can tweak this by messing with the button placement a little because it's just a few millimeters of a difference. So I think I'm gonna start by putting in the zipper in the back right now because I don't feel comfortable doing the collar.
While I don't know the size or the width or kind of the circumference of the top here. So I think I'm gonna put in the zipper first close up the skirt maybe hem the skirt. I want to pick up some buttons later today and then I'll try to kind of adjust this a little bit and make it line up just a little bit more. So that the pattern actually matches up. We're almost done I am pretty sure this is not how you're meant to attach a collar. I sewed it along the bottom and now the tops are open but I think I can make it work. If I now just hand stitch the insides closed and that will finish my seams up there but yeah this is the final step. I closed the skirt in the back and I hemmed it so last thing. I need to do is hand finish this collar and that will be the dress done. I'm so excited the dress is finished oh guys look how it twirls. I am very very happy with this I must honestly say this is probably one of my favorite dresses.
I have ever made and i really really wish this was a different fabric i adore the print it is gorgeous. It's one of the most beautiful prints. I think I've ever worked with I think it's so gorgeous I love the thickness I love everything. I love how it trips but it's so I mean can you hear what it does when it rubs against itself. It's made out of plastic basically it's a plastic dress and that's a bit sad I wish it was nice wool or something. So that I was actually you know nice and not like that but that being said this fabric was a dream to work with it was so good it does not fray at all. When you put two layers on top of each other they don't move they don't slip they don't slide it doesn't stretch a lot it was really really easy to work with I love that and in fact, I haven't had to redo any of my seams. This is incredible I don't think I've ever had that with any project before that I just went smoothly from beginning to end.
So I'm very happy with that I'm very happy with how this went although I must admit I was a bit sloppy on the construction side of things. It's constructed a bit lazily but you can't see you can't tell on the outside I think I'm very happy with how it turned out one thing. I'm not too happy with is the color let me come a bit closer here uh I didn't do the color properly. I think I'm pretty sure you're supposed to attach color to the face but I didn't do any facing and the color just kind of stands up weirdly but I think I will cheat my way around that by just tacking the underside of the collar to the dress in a few points. So that it actually lays nicely and I will also have to redo the buttons because they are a bit wobbly as you can see they don't go down in a straight line but I do really like these buttons. That I chose I think they go with the dress really nicely I would like to find some smaller ones to put on the sleeves.
I do think I want to close this with a button but I want to do one of those loop buttons. I think so if I ever find something that is similar to this but a little bit smaller. I will put those on the arms but for now, I don't think the sleeves are too bad like this either. I'm happy with my zipper I love how the color of the zipper is just perfect and I do think I put it in nicely I did it by hand which I think is the easiest way to do a zipper and oh I oh oh oh the sleeves I almost forgot about the sleeves. I love how these sleeves turned out I can hardly believe that this is my first kind of you know everyday wearable long sleeve and I really love how it turned out I kind of wanted this poofy sandy up a bit at the top here with the pleats. So initially I had made a sleeve pattern that was much bigger so that it would be poofy and then I decided to not go with that but go with an existing sleeve pattern but that was still bigger than the arm size.
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