First thing I do when I get home from work is get straight out of my good clothes . It protects them from me but also gets me out of the being at work mental zone . During winter my favourite down time uniform is a pair of trackies .You just can not beat trackies for comfort and feeling relaxed and dagginess ! My last pair had bagged out so badly at the bum and knees that even Saggy Baggy Elephant would have felt sorry for them so they are in the gardening clothes pile now. With no trackies left this was an opportunity to significantly up my casual clothes style.
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| Pattern combo for the purple stripe /spot dress. |
Both fabric pieces came from Clear It bought at the end of last year . I used Butterick 6883 for the blue and grey argyle knit dress . This is a really fantastic pattern that also comes with pants , a sleeveless vest and the dress shortened into a top. The pants are definitely a contender for upmarket trackies too ! I love the front angled seams with pockets , the curved neckline with an interesting collar and dropped sleeves . Even the upper back has a curved inset piece. This makes for a very comfy dress with lots of design possibilities. I sewed this dress during a very busy period . Sometimes I only had time to sew up one seam at a time but over a couple of weeks I managed to complete it so it is a relatively easy pattern as well. The only changes I made were to lengthen the dress and I added piping to the neckline . The piping is woven so the neckline is a little bit tighter but luckily I can still get it over my head easily enough.
The pockets bag out a little bit but the pros of having them greatly outweigh that factor and after all these are just trackie replacements so I am not fussed by that.
The purpley striped and dotty knit dress was made using a collaboration between a Kwik Sew 2900 top , Vogue 2101 dress and a pocket from an old Burda WOF mag. Although I have made KS 2900 many times it has been a few years now but it was always my go to pattern for T shirts . I like the shaping of the vogue dress being slightly pegged and knee length. I did double the width of the KS collar piece so it was a rollover collar rather than just a turtle neck. This was also a very easy make although attempting stripe matching required a bit more care.
I used some of the dark purple stripe knit to bind the pocket edges and make it just a bit more interesting.
I am pretty happy with my new dresses ( now just have to wait for the cool weather ) . Such a step up my usual casual outfits . I won`t be embarrassed answering the door now to unexpected visitors !
