Summer Shift Dress

Overall: Who doesn't love a shift dress--especially for the summer? Everybody does! All-in-all, I am very happy with this dress, as I always am! Love it!

Fabric: I used this beautiful beige and red

checked rayon Donna Karen fabric from #MoodFabrics. I ordered this by almost accident. I got this because I ordered a fabric from Mood that was sold out and I had to quickly come up with something to replace it, I selected this fabric. Well, it has this amazing crepe fill to and and the movement in it is amazing. This would also be amazing as a halter jumper. I cannot describe how awesome this fabric is. I have had it for a few months trying to figure out what to make with it.

Pattern: I used this basic shift pattern from

Butterick (5211) as my base. This is described as a simple one hour dress. It really is, I just seem to make things take longer than they have to be. I don't have a serger and for this fabric, the edges had to be finished, so I used a stitch on my sewing machine that mimics a serger and it takes forever! None the less, this pattern is simple and certainly a winner. I used a blind hem on all exposed edges.

Alterations: I eliminated the pockets for this one. I anticipated and hoped that this dress would fit the way that it does and I thought the pockets might add too much bulk at the side. So I am glad that I left them out. The pattern has a seamless semi-cap sleeve. I wanted a little more sleeve, so I added this angled bell sleeve to it. The tucks that you see are by accident. I really did not want that, but I was too lazy to fit the sleeve appropriately to the sleeve seams. To get the sleeve, I just laid out the pattern where the edge of the sleeve ended, pinned the tape measure in the center and marked about a half inch for every time that I moved the measure. The longest edge was 21inches and I can't remember what the shortest edge was.

If I had to make this again, I would fit the top sleeve seam appropriately and I would make the inner sleeve a little longer than I did. I think I started about about 14 inches in length.