Stashbusting May Theme: "Stretch Sewing": My Stripy Stretch Dress

This month's theme for the stashbusting sewalong is stretch sewing. Well, it happens that I have just the piece of fabric to fit the bill.

On a recent trip to the Fabric Store during the last school holidays, I was looking for some 100% cotton stretch fabric in two colours to start on my Alabama Chanin dress. Alas, I couldn't find two matching fabrics in 100% cotton in a fabric weight or colours that I liked. I was so sure that they would have the perfect fabric, so now I'm still stuck with nothing!

I did, however, spot this black and white striped fabric. It had been marked down because of a water mark running down the side. I didn't think to take a photo of it before I started to try and get the mark out. First I pre-washed using regular washing detergent, and when that didn't make much of a difference, I soaked overnight in Napisan. The mark is still there, but it is a lot fainter, and when I went to cut the fabric out I couldn't find it enough to worry about, so let's pretend it wasn't there in the first place.

I bought more fabric to make up for the mark, so there's heaps left over to make something else.

Enough about the fabric though, and on to the dress. During winter, I'm more of a jeans wearing type of person. I have a few pair of pants that I've made which make the regular rotation, but most definitely long pants every day. I thought I'd give that a bit of a shake up this year, with a winter dress. Nothing fancy, just a T-shirt dress with long sleeves. No pockets this time though. The ones I added to my blue T-shirt dress aren't really that practical, so I skipped them this time. I like the amount of ease that I put in my blue dress, but didn't want the extra gathers at the neck edge. So I based my pattern on the blue dress, without the gathers.

Unfortunately for me, the stripes (or maybe it's the sleeves) make this dress look a little like a sack! I wasn't about to take the sides in, those stripes took forever to pin, and cost me a needle (and a pin!) when I ran over one with my machine.

Finished side seam

I contemplated adding some elastic at the waist to pull it in, but there isn't actually that much ease. Since I'll probably have a cardigan or something over the top most of the time anyway, I'll just leave it as is. The fabric is so soft, I think it will still get a lot of wear this winter no matter what it looks like (if winter ever starts that is!)