I happened across the Kathryn Dress Pattern* by Itch to Stitch while trying to find something for my very petite mother. At the beginning of the year, she sent me this picture of a RTW dress she liked:
My mom couldn’t believe that this dress had an all over floral pattern which she loved! I think all the women in our family are a little floral obsessed, actually! She also liked how soft the fabric was, so I told her it was probably made of double brushed poly. The problem is, the smallest size was way too big and I doubted she would find anything similar that fit her and had the style she wanted.{This post contains affiliate links, indicated by an asterisk*. Please refer to ‘About’ in the top menu for more info.}
I told Mom I could make her one and we set out to find the perfect pattern! She wanted a dress that had some detail at the chest, and wasn’t too form-fitting at the waist and hips. We eventually settled on the Kathryn and she chose this lovely floral DBP from Sew Vagabond. My mom was in town, so I was able to fit her for an XS muslin. It ended up being a size too big. I probably should have known. My mom has the same body as me, only smaller and shorter. Kennis’s patterns fit better on me sized down.
The final dress is an XXS, graded out to to a XS at the waist (the dress has an empire waist). I did a SBA this way after getting a refresher from Melly Sews. This great tutorial is for SBAs and FBAs, so check it out!
Also, I *finally* learned how to do a narrow shoulder adjustment on a dolman sleeve! Christine Haynes has this genius blog post on bust adjustments with a dolman sleeve. She demonstrates how to draw a faux armscye. I used her method of cutting off the ‘sleeve’ and then I did my narrow shoulder adjustment and SBA and then I pieced the ‘sleeve’ back on.
I made adjustments for height because my mom is 4′ 9″ tall. I forgot to mention that by this point, my mom was home, 2000 miles away so I took lots of measurements. I knew that she wanted the dress to be 35″ tall from the bottom of the neck.
The last adjustment I made was to bring the neckline in 1/2″ all the way around.
The finished dress is 1 size smaller than the original and 2 sizes smaller than the size I would have chosen based on my own measurements. After all that work, I had to try it on. And what do you know…it fits ME perfectly!
The only problem I have is that the neckline gapes a little bit, how do I fix that? Just take out a little at center front? (The pic makes it looks worse than it is bc my shoulders are forward.) It looks like my center pleats are facing the wrong way but I don’t even care.
This is such a happy dress, I just love it!
I usually don’t like to twin with my mom but she does have good taste in fabric. Maybe I’ll have to make an exception…?
Anyway, I hope it fits her because she’s waited for it to be done for way to long!
UPDATE: The dress in size XXS (no surprise) was too big for my mom so I am keeping it. I graded the pattern down one size and made an identical dress for my mom.
Cute dress. I love most anything Kennis designs. As for the gaping neckline, here's a link to an ingenious way to fix it once it's made. https://stitchesandseams.blogspot.com/2015/01/fixing-gaping-neck-after-fact.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+StitchesAndSeams+(Stitches+and+Seams)
I love that color combo. I've seen a lot of navy and coral/pink going on this year. In fact, I even bought a dress in those colors for my son's wedding.
What is RTW dress?
Hi Phyllis, a RTW dress = Ready to Wear, which means that it is purchased, not sewn.