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Sunday, October 6, 2013

The Sally Shirtdress

No. 124 - The Sally Shirtdress by Serendipity Studio

Below is my version of this wonderful pattern.  I first found the material on-line at Pink Chalk Fabrics.  Although I have never been to the shop, the next time I am in the Seattle area, I plan on visiting.  It looks like a wonderful shop on Bainbridge Island.  Anyways, my husband bought me a gift certificate and I knew when I saw this fabric, it would be perfect for the shirtdress.  

Front view

The pattern is fairly straight forward.  It has a front, back, sleeve and collar.  The bottom trim on the sleeves and hem can either be ruffled or a flat piece of fabric.  I opted for a little ruffle in some red and white polka dot coordinating fabric I found at a local quilt shop. 



Back view
I made a size small and it was very roomy.  The roominess is taken up by the pleats. The 8 pleats around the front and back requires a little math calculation, but it's nothing too difficult.  You can adjust the height and depth of the pleats according to where your waistline is.  I pin fitted mine first, to make sure the pleats were coming out the way I anticipated.  I wanted the pleats to end just below the bust and right at the bottom of the belt - which they did! 

Close up of buttons and belt
I also made the covered buttons and the belt.  I just happened to have in my stash the perfect belt buckle as well!  I think it was given to me by a friend a few years ago, but it matches perfectly!  One note on the covered buttons.  I purchased some new button covering kits by Dritz and they were terrible! My buttons kept falling apart. I've never run into that problem before - especially with just some thin quilting cotton.  I ended up taking them back to the store and using some old ones I already had in my stash. 

Before returning them, I did a size comparison on the new ones to the old ones and discovered that the prongs on the new ones were much shorter and not as sharp as my older ones - hence the problem.  There wasn't enough "teeth" to grab and hold the fabric. I e-mailed Dritz about the problem but never heard a reply from them.  Keep that in mind if you purchase some new button covering kits.  One thing I didn't try was interfacing the piece of fabric - that might have made a difference, but I doubt it.  Now when I'm looking at yard sales, I will buy as many old versions of the button covering kits that I can find!

Another view of the front
This really is a cute dress and very comfortable to wear.  I opted for the ruffle trim on the bottom hem and on the sleeve. 

Close up of hem

I feel like June Cleaver in this dress!  Especially with the pearl necklace and earrings!  

Sleeve detail

I hope you will give this pattern a try.  I'm sure I will be making another version soon!

Happy Sewing!

2 comments:

  1. Wow, your dress is gorgeous! I've been eyeing this pattern, but I'm a relatively novice sewer - are the pleats terribly difficult??

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    1. The pleats aren't terribly difficult but do require a bit of math calculations. I say give it a try but first try the dress in before topstitching all of the pleats. If you don't like the placement you could rip them out and adjust easily since nothing has been cut in the process.

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