Following the early June Historical Sewing Society outing I was rather stumped on what to sew next. After playing with all sorts of ideas in my head, I decided to just grab the nearest materials and make something to avoid being stuck in limbo for too long.
Right at hand was a ‘90s sundress pattern I’d picked up at a thrift store for 50 cents the week before. View A looked like a comfortable, easy wearing, summer dress!
I cut the pattern out in my size, then went looking for some fabric to use. Piled up in my sewing room were my recent acquisitions from the City Sewing Room. After realizing my first choice of fabric for this project was a bit too short for the pattern I was using, I grabbed my second choice off the stack - a multi-colored floral on a black background.
The City Sewing Room sells fabric for $2 a pound to support the different programs they offer the city. This particular piece of fabric weighed 9 ounces, so it cost me just over $1 for somewhere between 2 and 3 yards of a nice quality cotton.
It took some maneuvering, but there was just enough of this fabric to cut the dress out of.
I added a little extra width to the hemline, because I like my skirts being as full as possible!
I cut the dress out the afternoon after the Historical Sewing Society outing, and got it sewed together over the next 3 evenings, a little bit at a time.
Some thrifted bias tape finished the armholes and made the elastic casing at the waistline.
Stash elastic finished the waistline, and then I dug through my stash for buttons.
I chose the buttons I pulled off this dress when I retired it from my closet several years ago. (I loved the buttons but that dress never was the most comfortable. Poor fabric choice and too slim of a skirt) I was thrilled to be able to re-use the buttons on a dress that would hopefully receive a bit more love!
And, since these buttons had already been used once before, they were basically free this time around, right?
And so, less than $2 and about 3 evenings of work later (less than 2 hours per evening for the record), I had a new sundress! My first “modern” make of this summer!
I wore it the following weekend when my husband and I went out to celebrate our anniversary.
Hiking, a steak dinner and couch shopping - a thoroughly enjoyable day together!
A fellow hiker on the trail we went to commented on how nice my dress looked.
I’m happy to say this dress has been worn almost weekly ever since, for work, and fun, and even camping!
It’s just so comfortable and easy to wear. I might have to make a second version of this pattern.
The buttons are certainly receiving more love on this dress than they did on the first!
This dress was just the quick and easy project I needed after finishing my 1910’s and 20’s projects, before starting on the next big thing!
Great dress, I love it when I can get something I really love from what I already have! I recently made a wrap dress from a linen table cloth that I found for a dollar, so pretty and so many compliments 😁 I looked at the dress you harvested the buttons from, that one was lovely too, too bad it wasn’t comfortable. Will you remake in a more comfortable fabric, widen the skirt maybe? The pattern company seems to be out of business 😞
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