Blue moses dress

I took an extra day off this week and had a brainwave of a dress to make, This is a pattern I made up, straight on to the fabric. I wanted big sleeves. I was going to make it from a floaty material and cinch it in, but then decided stretchy fabric would be nice as it would stretch to fit my body without needing a belt. Plus this fabric was super cheap so I didn't care if it didn't work out :)

I used the 2 way stretch lycra mix, it is really cheap from Kutwells in Christchurch. I like this fabric because it just stretches over everything so you don't need darts or zips, etc.

 The other neat thing about this fabric is you don't have to finish the edges as it just rolls and doesn't fray. You can literally roll the length you like, I have rolled it to a demure length here.

It has massive sleeves, reminds me of the seventies. But my flatmate told me it looked like I was making Moses' outfit, so that is why it is named this.

I cut a circle out to make the neck hole (but cut it way big), this was an easy fic, just meant I had to pull down the centre front and ruche it by wrapping thread around it and this fixed it falling off my shoulders and made it more flattering cleavage wise, lol. Though I didn't finish the edges, I did finish the neckline by sewing some of the same fabric around the neckline like you do with bias tape. The nice thing about this fabric is you don't need to cut  the tape on the bias a s it stretches in all directions, you just cut a strip in one direction and it fits.

If I want to I can wear it as a one shouldered dress just by popping my head through a sleeve and rolling in the neck line. The other sleeve then glamorously falls off the shoulder.

I like it best with a belt and matching shoes as I always like to accentuate my waist, but this is what it looks like by itself :)

The construction...
The idea was the same as the circle skirt-fold a giant iece of fabric in four, cut out a neck hole (instead of a waist hole). I then laid one of my tops folded in half to work out roughly where the arms should go (but added on heaps as this is clingy fabric) and pinned these basically falling straight to the floor, and moved the pins til it fit my body nicely. I then sewed wherever the pins are. The length was too long and so were the sleeves so I cut them. I have displayed the fabric layout so you can see where I sewed the seams. It is actually symmetrical, I just didn't take a good picture :)




Now I can't wait to make more, maybe I will try floaty fabric next.