Go To Dress...#4 Linen Refashion

My mom bought me a linen dress for family pictures in 1999.  I loved it-it was my lounge around the house on a Sunday afternoon and the dress I wore during my 8 and 9 months of pregnancy.

It is long and just the right fabric weight.

But after many years of wear it started to tear and rub holes.  I was sad, and am planning on making a dress similar to it this summer.  When I was sketching ideas for the go-to dresses I remembered this linen and knew what I wanted it to look like.

 

The Go-To Dress pattern is found HERE

Here is what I did differently...

 Cut longer and a little bit wider, the shoulders are also longer.

Because linen is more of a summer fabric I wanted this to be a short sleeve dress.  I widened the sleeves and made them longer.

 The fold of the sleeve is a seam from the dress.  I pressed it to give it a crisp edge.

 The back of the dress was also cut on a seam.  I cut a 2 1/2 inch slit on the top.

I sewed the shoulders together and sewed on double fold bias tape on all edges.

 The bias tape was also sewn on to the sleeve edge and the dress hem.

When I got to the slit at the nape of the neck I sewed a small loop out of bias tape for the button.

 

Once the bias tape was sewn on I added the sleeves.

Now on to the fun part...

 

 Sew the double fold bias tape together-it makes a stiffer narrow ribbon.

 I sewed the stems and leaves directly on to the dress-using a zig-zag stitch.

 For the top flower I zig-zagged the bias tape into pleats.

 This is what it looked like when it was done.

 Add the petals however you want them to appear.  I found the diasy petals are best if you make a figure 8 and sew in the middle.

 I debated about added a waist band, but because there is no stretch to the fabric I opted for no waist band this time.

 She loves it!  After the photo shoot she asked if she could wear it today.

This dress to a bit longer because of the bias tape-using what I had on hand I had to pick out a few stitches because it didn't catch the edge of the dress.  But once I figured out what to do it wasn't too bad.  Next time I think I would make my own bias tape-and make it a touch thicker.

Just one more dress to show you.  I hope you have enjoyed these dresses as much as I have.