Love Notions Cadence - Sleeveless Dress

I have owned this sewing pattern for 5.5 years and I finally decided to try it.

Since I have made so many garments with knit fabric - surprise! - I found that I have only one woven fabric that might be suitable for this garment.

But first I had to make a test garment to see if this pattern might work. I had to go out to buy a woven fabric. I went to my local Hobby Lobby and found a summery floral.

I traced the pattern in my size, as usual. I laid the front pattern piece over my body and decided that I needed to lower the bust dart one inch. I did that and cut out the floral fabric.

I sewed it up using all my machines (sewing machine, serger, and coverstitch machine). Here are pictures of the first garment.

Whoah, now. That last picture shows the fabric bunching at my back waist. That means I needed to do a swayback adjustment. Luckily, my friend Sherril showed me something I had seen, not tried, and forgotten.

Oh, goodness. My husband took one look at the last picture and said, "You don't have a swayback. It's just that your belly is pulling all that fabric to the front."

He may be right, but this seems to work for me now. The proof is in the next version of this pattern. I used a thin knit with almost no stretch - which just happened to be in my stash.

Oh, another surprise. I needn't have lowered the bust dart, so I moved it almost all the way back to where it started.

So I guess the next step will be to make up this pattern in the GOOD fabric.

I hope to report back within the next year!

Love Notions Laundry Day Tee - Sleeveless Dresses

I found a pattern for a top or dress that I really like, so I have made 22 of them since I first go the pattern.

This is the Laundry Day Tee (LDT) by Love Notions Designs. There is a special deal on this pattern when you join their Facebook group.

Here is my first sleeveless one using a swim fabric that I don't know where I got it. My topstitching and hems were finished with a medium zigzag stitch.

The next sleeveless dress I made is of a thin mesh fabric which may have been from JoAnn Fabrics. I did not have a lot of fabric, but it is a non-directional print. This means that I could add a back seam and cut it out in opposite directions.

Once again, my topstitching and hems were finished with a medium zigzag stitch.

I wear it a lot, especially when it's hot or raining outside, which are not mutually exclusive to Florida.

The older I get, the more likely I am to have coordinating earrings.

One of my favorite sleeveless dresses is this one, which I made really wide and really long. I added a center back seam to make this work for the amount of fabric I had.

I trimmed the hem after cutting using the method in my previous post.

A friend gave me this next fabric (which is no longer available online). It has vacation vibes, so I had to make another long, sleeveless dress. Once again, I made it longer, wider, and with a center back seam.

I believe this knit mesh fabric was from JoAnn Fabrics. It is so light and airy, but I did not get much, so it became a shorter dress.

So that's it for the sleeveless dresses ... for now.

Love Notions Laundry Day Tee - Dresses with Short Sleeves

I found a pattern for a top or dress that I really like, so I have made 22 of them since I first go the pattern.

This is the Laundry Day Tee (LDT) by Love Notions Designs. There is a special deal on this pattern when you join their Facebook group.

Here is the first one using a very thin jersey fabric that is no longer available on Amazon. I used the serger for all of the seams and for attaching the band at the neckline. I used the dress width and made it the length that I thought I wanted. I did hem the sleeves but not the lower hem, and it has yet to unravel. My topstitching of choice was a medium zigzag stitch.

The next one that I sewed was with a mystery pink foil fabric that I found in a mystery fabric barn in north-central Florida. Still using the dress width, I even hemmed the - hem!

Again with the dress width, I went for a more winter-wearing stretch crushed velvet. Silly me - I never modeled it, but it certainly was in winter-wearing rotation.

More winter wearing came with a paisley ponte from JoAnn Fabrics, this one just a little shorter than most.

Wouldn't you know that right before the pandemic, I lost some weight. I made this cute little dress with an athletic knit. Now it hangs in the closet, waiting for me to re-lose that weight.

The next one was another very lightweight knit from an un-memorable source, but this one has a special trick which I used more and more often - I flared the dress as much as the fabric would let me and trimmed the hem after construction.

When I first cut it out, I just extended the side seams as wide and as long as possible for the fabric.

Then I laid out the dress facing me, with side seams evenly to each side, and trim the bottom so that it was straight across.

Then I turned it so that the side seams were together, and the center front and center back were on opposite sides.

Then I just started trimming evenly in several steps.

I posed in this one.

Of course, I did it again in an ITY (interlock twist yarn) knit from Fabric dot com (maybe?).

Oops, I did it again. Don't mind if I do, but here I show that I added to the center back to make a seam so that the pattern would fit onto the fabric. This works best when the print is not directional.

This turned out well, I think.

And again.

And for winter again, another crushed stretch velvet, but this one is extra silky. It's from FabricsUniverse on Etsy. - What?? I didn't pose in it?

Well, golly, those are all the LDTs (Laundry Day Tees) that I made with short sleeves.

Working on KwikSew 3949 part 6

What can I say?

I did some more work on this dress today:

I serged the cut edge of the hem (not shown).  I marked the elastic to the length for my size.

I threaded the elastic through the casing and basted the overlap together with big zigzag stitches.  When I tried the dress on, the waist was too big, so I pulled the elastic back out, removed the basting, overlapped it more, and basted again.  Now the waist fits me correctly:

When I tried the dress on, hubby and cousin told me that it looked like a house dress:

Oh, no!  It really does look like a house dress!

If you look carefully, you can see that my under-clothes are showing under my arms!

Oh, well!  What I have is another well-made wadder!

When I figure out what went wrong, I will share that.


I have a previous wadder that's been hanging in a closet for many months.  I will need to share that, too!

Working on KwikSew 3949 part 5

I finished the waistline casing of this dress:

As of my previous post, the skirt had just been pinned to the bodice assembly with waistline casing pieces attached.  Since then, the skirt piece was sewn to the outer layer of the waistline casing.  After stitching the seam, I finished off the raw seam allowances with the serger.  I also steam pressed that seam before continuing:

I pulled the skirt out of and away from the bodice, and I pressed its seam (towards the top of the picture) towards the bodice:

I pressed the inside casing piece away from the bodice. to enclose the outside casing and both casing seams:

I turned the dress has been to the outside.  While pinning it all together, I had to make sure that the casing lower seam allowances stayed as pressed towards the bodice and the inside casing piece completely covered (encased) the lower seam:

I stitched on the outside of the skirt, just below the waistline casing, with a technique known as stitching in the ditch:

Here's what the inside of the waistline casing looks like after I stitched it from the outside.  Now the bodice is at the top of the picture:

I know this dress doesn't look like much on the hanger, but here it is:

Coming up next: insert elastic into the waistline casing and hem the dress.