Something nice to wear
I don’t know about you, but I just love that feeling you get when you’re getting ready for a night out. Choosing an outfit and accessories, putting on makeup and doing your hair. It’s just great, particularly if you’ve purchased something new for the occasion. But recently I’ve found an even better feeling – getting dressed up for a night out in something you made yourself! If you read my post last week – Wide Leg Pants – you will know about the Thread Den classes I attended. So this week is a continuation but this time I want to tell you about the simple shift dress.
The Simple Shift Dress class teaches you a lot of similar sewing techniques as the Wide Leg Pants class. Including installing an invisible zip and using the overlockers to finish edges. But in this class you also learn how to stitch darts and sew an all-in-one neck/armhole facing. And trust me, working with this type of facing is a lot more complex than one you have on a skirt.
To try and give myself a bit of an extra challenge I decided to make the simple shift dress with a rayon fabric I picked up from Spotlight. I’ve never worked with a rayon fabric before so I knew it would be a great learning opportunity. As soon as I saw this fabric with it’s lovely dark blue colour and elegant cranes I just had to buy it. I have to say that rayon is quite a difficult fabric to work with, because it’s fine and quite slippery. I particularly found it a challenge to cut out the pattern pieces without the fabric moving around.
Something else that is worth mentioning is that some of thread Den’s classes do require you to have a certain sewing skill level. So if you haven’t done any sewing in the past you might want to check out their Sewing Basics course. This will give you enough knowledge to try one of their clothes sewing classes.
I’m really happy with how my simple shift dress turned out! I just love the dress style and I think the fabric I chose is just beautiful. I also think that the pattern can be really versatile. You could choose a casual cotton fabric for an everyday dress or a more elegant fabric for special occasions. I can really recommend this class if you want to start sewing your own clothes. It’s also a great starting off point for the more complicated fitted dresses. I can’t wait to make another one!
Just lovely