The Taylor Dress
I made my first dress! Ok, it's actually my second dress. But I'm not sure that the poorly executed toddler pillowcase dress that would fall apart at the slightest whiff of a washing machine should really count. But this is a dress that counts! (This dress was made before my Hawaii maxi dress, I just didn’t get around to blogging it until now).
My friend went to a Taylor Swift concert this summer and had her heart set on a white dress with all of the Taylor Swift songs written on the skirt in fabric markers. She was having a hard time finding a dress she liked in a material that worked with fabric markers so I ended up making one for her.
The Dress
My pattern was the Open Back Babydoll Dress from MarthWiss on Etsy. It was very affordable at only $5 but it is only available in the A4 paper size (which is what they use in the UK). To print on letter paper I printed each page across two pieces of paper and then taped them together. The pattern was fairly easy to follow and had a picture for each step. The instructions called for serging all pattern pieces as the first step, but I found that it distorted my fabric so I just serged the seams later.
I love the fun puffed sleeves on the dress, the open back with the big bow, and the fact that I didn't have to sew any darts or invisible zippers. Easy, simple, and cute.
The fabric is a white double cotton gauze from Joanns. It adds a nice bit of visual interest for a solid dress, it's made from natural fibers so the fabric markers worked good on it, and it was on sale for $10/yard. The gauze was easy to sew and I'm definitely going to make more projects with this fabric!
Modifications
The dress fit my friend perfectly except for the cuffs on the sleeves. The pattern made a cuff that was pretty much the exact same circumfrence as her arm - which isn't very practical. I ended up needing to add about 1.5 inches to the cuff length.
I am very happy with how this dress turned out. Already, I have plans to make another one of these dresses, also in double gauze, very soon. Here is a quick picture of the dress we took in the middle of the writing process. Apparently Taylor Swift has a lot of songs! It took nearly all day for several people to write all of her songs on the skirt of the dress. But it was definitely a fun, and unique, project.
Project Overview - The Taylor Dress
Pattern: Open Back Babydoll Dress from MarthaWiss on Etsy
Size: Small
Finish date: July 2023
Cost: $20 ($5 in fabric , $15 in fabric)
Fabric: 1.5 yds of White Double Cotton Gauze from Joanns
