This month we made the Kitty Dress by Maven Patterns in our gorgeous merchant and mills red chambray fabric. Perfect for the coming months transitioning into Autumn.
This pattern is very detailed in its construction with clearly written instructions. It has a peter-pan collar, feature bust darts, edgestitched seams, in seam pockets, and button closure at the back so does not require a zip.
The main elements of this pattern are the edgestiched seams, and also edgestitched on the bust and back shoulder darts. When sewing the centre front seam, ensure your edgestitched bust darts meet up accurately as this will be a very visible element of your dress.
Whilst you could use a twin needle to edgestitch the seams you would need to use a single needle to edgestitch the darts, so I edgestitched throughout with a single needle. Firstly, ensure you have pressed you seam open, and it is lying flat. Then position your sewing foot, aligning a marking on your sewing foot with your seam line, this will then make it easier for you to stich an even edgestitch following along this line.
When edgestitching your bust darts and back shoulder darts do not back stitch at the tip of the dart, instead pull to top thread through to the back and knot the thread, then sew the ends into the dart on the wrong side. So as to give a neat even finish to your edgestitching.
The peter-pan collar is another lovely feature of the Kitty Dress, and again the instructions are very clearly detailed in the booklet with the pattern.
The underside of the collar will be very fractionally smaller than the top of the collar, this is to allow the seam to roll and lie slightly to the under collar so as to create a clean finish.
When attaching the collar to the neckline of the dress it is important to get the collar to meet and align at the centre front seam, at the 6mm seam allowance. It is best to pin and then tack the collar in place to ensure you are happy with the alignment before you machine stitch your collar in place. The alignment of the collar will also be a very noticeable element of your dress.
Inserting the sleeves is clearly detailed aligning the notches and then gathering the sleeve head. Once pinned it is best to tack in place to check your fitting.
The button loop at the back of the neck is sewn by hand and then the button attached.
I decided to deviate from the pattern instructions on sewing the hem and the sleeve hems and use a custom made facing taken from the hem of the pattern piece. The pattern details a bound sleeve hem, but I felt that a facing would sit neater to finish at a 3/4 length sleeve.
The Kitty Dress by Maven Patterns is a lovely design and can be made up in variety of fabrics, including light to medium weight denims, chambrays, linen, cotton twills and fine wools, so perfect for the coming colder months.
Happy Sewing! from the NFSS team.
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