What makes a garment easy to sew? No closures, no lining and very little advanced techniques being used. The only fancy thing here was the welted pocket. You may leave that out or do a patch pocket.

You may remember my other quilt top jelly roll dress from last fall. Some of the colors from the jelly roll did not go with my dress so I made a separate quilt top with the blues, greens and purples. My friend Kelly was hinting around that she wanted a jelly roll dress. Not that I need a reason to make another dress.

I did all the same techniques I learned from the first jelly roll dress except this one was 25 strips instead of 14. With 25 strips it was long enough to use as a vertical stripe for the skirt of a dress. I would need to explore more creative options if this was to be a dress. While shopping my fabric stash I found the perfect 1960 barkcloth fabric that matched. BOOM they fell in love and got married!

This dress design would be influenced by the Mexican Peasant Dress.

For the bodice I folded my fabric in fourths and then divided my measurements in fourths. 12″ at the bust equals 48″ and a 4″ curved neckline will wind up being 16″ wide when finished. This is my first illustration for pattern making on my iPad. Please bear with me.

The remainder of the dress was sewn on the serger making it even easier.  You can do it just the same on a regular machine.

I added a strip of the quilt top to the sleeve bottom (the cuffs) to tie it into the skirt and have less waste.

My last problem was the dress had a strip left from the sleeves and a long rectangle left of the barkcloth where I cut out under the arms.

Welted pockets are so cool. I wanted the pocket to be big enough for a large cell phone and keys. I’m happy with how it came out and expect my next one will be even better.

Remember, if you are a beginner don’t be so hard on yourself, start easy and build your skills up one at a time.

Since my square quilt top was already all serged around the edges the hemline was simply a fold, press and topstitch. Then I gathered at the waistline and married the skirt to the bodice.

To finish it I stitched pre-made bias tape to the neckline and added my label to the inside.

Since I used the barkcloth to make the bodice and the inside of the welted pocket I was only left with a few tiny scraps of the dress.

 

Thank you for reading,

Tracy McElfresh

Dream It! Sew It!

Tracy McElfresh
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