After cleaning out my closet a few months again, I began to feel like I didn’t have any dresses to wear. I had success Inari Tee pattern but wanted to expand my repertoire. In my search for basic dress patterns, I found the Adelaide dress from Seamwork Magazine. All of the Seamwork patterns are designed to be sewn in just a few hours and this one only takes 3 hours. Even though I did buttons instead of snaps on the dress it was really fast to make. I just love a fast make, especially when it’s a basic, wardrobe builder like this dress.
For this pattern, I decided to start with a wearable muslin (a test garment out of fashion fabric that’s completely finished). The fabric is from the Michael Levine bargain bins in downtown LA. It’s almost a seersucker but doesn’t have as much puckering and I suspect it also has some synthetic fibers. It’s a light-medium weight with no show-through (yay!) so it’s just perfect for this dress.
I cut a size 10 at the bust and graded to an 8 at the hips. Following the advice of Rachel, I also lowered the bust dart one inch. In the end, I think the fit is pretty good and works really well belted. The pattern also includes a self fabric belt and belt loops but I skipped those. I am considering adding the belt loops though. I think it would give the dress a nice additional detail. One thing I’m considering changing about the fit is moving the shoulders in towards the neck. They feel just on the verge of too wide.
The pattern calls for using snaps to close the front of the dress (I think to cut down on the sewing time). I have an overflowing button collection and have never been successful setting snaps so I went for buttons. As this is just a muslin, I chose some vintage but not so special buttons. I have at least 20 of these buttons and figured out I could use more of them by applying them in pairs. I love how the button pairs look and I think it makes this otherwise plain dress extra special.
Sadly, this dress totally wrong for the current season as it’s relatively cold in LA right now (finally! yay!). I won’t be able to wear it anytime soon, but I know that I’ll be able to come back to this pattern to build out my summer wardrobe.