Shirt Dress
This lovely soft shirt-dress is from Yoshiko Tsukiori’s Stylish Dress Book. I got this for my birthday (thanks, Kenton & Kirsty!) and have been working my way through some of the beautiful designs. It’s the first time I’ve used a Japanese pattern book, so it’s involved a nice bit of learning.
Below you can see the model picture from the book, and then my version under construction and finished.
I chose a soft brushed cotton in a checked pattern, similar to the model in the book. This made a super cosy dress, lovely for spring and autumn.
All of the pattern pieces in the book are printed on three double-sided sheets, which to begin with looks terrifying. I just took it slowly, found the correct pattern pieces (which takes some time) and traced them onto tracing paper.
Eye-twisting pattern sheet.
If you take it slowly and follow the colour-coding then it’s actually quite easy to trace the piece that you need. And if anyone sees you muttering thoughtfully with all these patterns spread across the floor, then you are going to look very clever.
The patterns do not include seam allowance, and I traced them exactly and added the seam allowance when cutting the fabric.
After cutting I followed the instructions in the book to make up the dress. This was all reasonably easy to follow, I took it step-by-step and the dress came together well. One mistake that I seemed to have made was that the collar was too short. I don’t know how this happed - possibly I forgot to add the seam allowance. Luckily I would never wear a collar buttoned up to the neck (is it just me that feels like this? anything tight around my neck makes me feel really sick). So, to fix the too-short collar I just folded back the edges of the dress where they met the collar at the front. This means that the top button is a few inches below the collar, giving a nice little v-neck.
Once I had finished the sewing it was time to add buttons. I grubbed around in my button boxes, many passed down from my grandmother and mother-in-law, which was fascinating. It seems that no Lewis or Cotter in the last 3 generations has ever thrown away a button, or recycled a piece of clothing without carefully snipping the buttons off.
In my mother-in-law’s button box I found some adorable little bags of buttons, each with a price - 5p, 20p that I think she must have got from jumble sales. I sorted out different sets of buttons - Red! Green! Black! Silver Assorted! And pinned them onto the dress for a lot of indecision
In the end I went for plain black soft buttons, and that was the dress done. I like this one - very soft, very warm and comfy. I like the 3/4 length arms, the little tuck in the middle of the back and the whole easy to wear feel - perfect to pair with wellies and a curious duck.
