Vogue 8380
Guess what? I sewed something!!! Who would have thought that I had the time? Certainly not me, but this one is easy enough. Here’s a description of the pattern from the envelope: “Mid-knee length dress has casing and tie variation, upper and lower sections gathered into waist inset, side zipper.” And that’s about it. I cut and sewed this in a day. Now, if you’re going to sew this without a zipper as I did, make sure you use your most stretchy stretch seams available to you for all horizontal seams (the seams above and below the inset). I used a long narrow zig-zag stitch to attach the waist inset band to the upper and lower parts. Also, I didn’t use any interfacing on the facing band:
This is the wrong side, of course. The instructions have you turning under the bottom raw edge and slip-stitching to the seams. Believe it or not, though, this fabric was bulky, so I just serged the raw edge and left it “floating”, stitching it down in the ditch at the side seams.
So, I didn’t use a zipper; if you use one on this dress (which I would recommend if using anything but the stretchy-est fabrics), the instructions are very easy to follow. It’s placed under the arm at the side seam.
This is a cute dress, but fabric choice is important. Choose a very drapey and/or thin fabric, because there is a lot of gathering. This fabric was not the best choice, too bulky after all the gathering. Also, in my opinion, the line drawing is very misleading. It would lead you to believe that the waistband hits at the waist, but this is a baby doll dress, and that’s all there is to it.
It’s a very comfortable dress, but I would definitely add at least one inch to the bodice pieces!
Now, if you’re more daring, you can lower that waistband by adjusting the ties:
This was as low as I was willing to go, LOL!
Cute, comfy dress. Great casual dress as is. Choose your thinnest fabrics for this one, and check that bodice length!
I love that dress! I hadn’t noticed that pattern before, but Based on how cute your dress is, I just bought it. Thanks for the inspiration!