Plaid Flannel Shirt Dress

I always sew a lot of Christmas gifts. All year, my kids, husband and friends ask me to make things for them and usually I say “no”. Sewing is time consuming and I don’t have enough time to sew what I want for myself. After Thanksgiving, I devote the weeks until Christmas to making gifts. I’m rarely finished in time and often give a box of wrapped fabric with a promise to sew something. This year was particularly bad because we threw a graduation party for my daughter on December 20th.  The party was great but it put me even more behind than usual and I’m just finishing my gifts now.

For this dress, I used Vogue 1462, by Donna Karan. It’s a shirt pattern that I lengthened a little and I added a belt. The pattern went together very nicely and it has an easy, full fit.

On a trip to Germany last summer, I bought a shirt with a very small collar that looks so cool to me. Most blouse patterns have huge collars but this one looked small in the sketch on the back of the pattern envelope. It turned out to be quite big, but I like the rounded shape. I have given her the dress, so I can’t take better pictures, but she promised to send me a picture of her wearing it, which I will post.

I ordered the flannel from Fabric.com, they don’t have the same plaid anymore. It was nice to work with, I meticulously matched the plaids, so it must be a pretty well woven fabric to be able to do that.

I used a new method to attach the collar band, it turned-out well. Found it on a cute blog, Four Square Walls. Instead of constructing the collar band first and then attaching it, you attach the underside collar band to the neckline and then construct the band. It makes it easier to end the collar band at exactly the edge of the front band. Always love to learn a new technique, thanks Andrea!

 

TTFN