This swingy knit dress evolved from a mash-up of Tabula Rasa Knit Tee and knit variation patterns and the Carpe Diem Dress & Tunic construction techniques. Wishing for a casual and easy wearing knit dress? Whether you call it a mash-up or hacking, follow these tips to stitch up a new style using your Fit for Art pattern collection.
Carrie purchased this cotton knit fabric from our friends at Fabric Mart this Spring thinking it would make a cute cropped knit top to go with the linen capris featured in last week’s post Barrel-leg Style Eureka Pants. Imagine her surprise when she took it out of the package to find that the scale of the floral print was much larger than anticipated. Lesson learned – read the online fabric descriptions more carefully!
Create the Mash-up Pattern
Inspired by Therese’s cruise wardrobe, Carrie decided a knit dress would better accommodate the very large floral print. Luckily there was enough fabric for a knee length dress. For her summer wardrobe, she chose to make it a sleeveless knit dress with a ballet neckline. Since this project would involve several pattern variations, she drew off a new pattern based on her core Tabula Rasa Knit Tee and incorporated the ballet neckline (templates in Wide Neckline Variations) and sleeveless side (pattern in Twin Set Variations), then added 13” of length to the Front, Side and Back pattern pieces.
To give the dress some swing, the pattern pieces were angled away from the fold in both the front and back by 4” at the lower cutting line. Look carefully to see how Carrie split the Front and Back patterns horizontally so that the upper body could still lie on the fold, fit unchanged, and just the “skirt” of the dress would angle off the fold to add fullness.
To do this yourself, draw a horizontal balance line onto your Front and Back patterns at the level of the dot which indicates where front and back would meet the side panel in a tee with sleeves. Cut the patterns apart along this line starting at the fold and stopping just shy of 5/8” from the side; clip in from the side to the 5/8” point leaving a small hinge.
Follow the Woven Dress Construction Steps
Finally, Carrie decided to support the neckline and armholes of the dress with a facing rather than simply finishing them with a band as directed in the Knit Tee & Tunic instruction books. The Ballet Neckline Templates were used to cut front and back facings, and a side facing pattern was traced off the upper section of the sleeveless side. They were interfaced with Soft Stretch fusible interfacing, making sure to cut the interfacing so that the stretch ran across the body, rather than up and down.
Construction of the dress followed the steps for a sleeveless Carpe Diem dress, while observing essential knit sewing techniques such as using a slightly zigzagged stitch for seams. Here are a few photos of sewing the facings into the dress.
The last step of the sleeveless dress process, sewing the shoulder seams together, worked in the knit just as with a woven fabric. For a final finish, the neckline and armhole were topstitched to prevent rolling and to flatten the somewhat bulky layers of cotton knit jersey.
Knits are always great for travel, so keep an eye on our social media! Carrie is looking forward to wearing her new swing dress on retreat in France next week. She is already dreaming about a swingy dress in a drapey woven fabric, perhaps with sleeves this time.
Which Fit for Art patterns have you combined to create your very own new style? Share your inspiration and photos with us and our community with #fitforartpatterns!
Your adaptation is brilliant. The method you used for the wider skirt is simple and achieves the look. You are a very smart sewer! Thank you for sharing!