Craftsy Month – Learn to Sew a Shift Dress

This post is part of Craftsy Review Month on Sew Sweetness. To see a schedule of all posts, click here! This post may contain affiliate links. Read the full disclosure here. Today’s post is from Wendy of W.D. Handbags. Check out all of Wendy’s bags and other projects here!

When I was approached by Sara to review a Craftsy class I jumped at the opportunity.  I had just recently completed Janelle’s “Mix & Match Clutch Techniques” (reviewed by Sheri from Lil’ Monkey Designs) and loved it and was excited to try another.

If anyone knows me knows I sew bags and wallets and that’s about it. I do a few other things for gifts occasionally but I’ve never tackled clothes before, so I thought this was a good opportunity to change that.  I decided to try “Learn to Sew a Shift Dress” by Nicole Vasbinder.

Nicole’s class is broken into 7 lessons, the shortest one lasting 12 minutes and the longest being 28 minutes; definitely something you can watch in between activities. The lessons cover everything you need to know, and are broken down as follows:
Lesson 1: Getting started
Lesson 2: Working with the pattern
Lesson 3: Marking & Cutting your fabric
Lesson 4: Fusing Fabric & Sewing Darts
Lesson 5: Shoulders, Side Seams & Facings
Lesson 6: Sleeves
Lesson 7: Contrast Band & Other Finishes

Now, generally I’m the type of person who wants to just jump in and go, I don’t read ahead into my patterns despite what the pattern creators say (sorry ladies!) this time I watched all of the lessons first. There were 2 reasons for this, 1) Since I never made a dress before, I wanted to be sure I was clear in what I was doing… and 2) the pattern Nicole uses in her lesson is from the McCall’s company and unlike most patterns from Craftsy you don’t download and print it yourself; they mail it to you directly from McCall’s. I’m located in Canada and it took (I want to say forever and a day to arrive) a little over a month to arrive, 32 days. Lots of time to mentally prepare for the challenge!

I liked some of the tips Nicole mentioned about working with the pattern, for example, if you know it’s a pattern you’re going to use frequently you can iron on interfacing to the back of the tissue paper to give it some body and make it easier to work with. (That weird brown tissue paper stuff is crazy sometimes!) She covers the types of fabrics that would work well if you’re not sure about what to use, explaining the drape of different fabrics.

In the first lesson, Nicole talks about measuring to get the right fit for your dress. Ugh. I hate measuring. Maybe this is why I sew bags not clothes? When I buy clothing in stores I’m generally a size 18/XXL. With McCall’s measurements I didn’t even fit into their 24W (plus size) measurements. I had to use the 24W as a template as it was the biggest they had and add to the pattern so the dress would fit! I’ve bought clothing patterns before and have had others (mainly my mom-Thanks Mama!) make me clothes and never ran into this problem so perhaps it’s just this pattern I don’t know. If you decide to try this class/pattern, you’re going to want to measure.

She also showed how to do “stay stitching” around the collar – it’s not mentioned in the pattern but is apparently a seamstress trick for making sure your neckline doesn’t stretch out as you work with the fabric. Smarty pants.

 Nicole shows different ways to finish the seams in your garment which was good, because I don’t think it’s mentioned in the pattern and not something I would think/know to do.

She also goes over the ‘Art of the Dart’ and why darts are important and how to get them to disappear on your dress.

Also another trick she mentions is hand tacking the inside collar to the seam allowance so it’s not loose and will stay put when you’re wearing your creation.

I like that if I had any questions through the lessons, you can pause and ask your question. I asked something to see how long it would take for a response and I believe the answer was there the next day (it was late in the day when I posted my question).

Overall, I felt like I learned some tricks about sewing garments that I wouldn’t have learned if I just went and bought the pattern and sewed from their instructions. I really like my completed dress, although I haven’t had a chance to wear it yet! I do think I will make another or 2 as they’ll be great to wear for Spring/Summer.

Thank you Sara for the opportunity to try out something new! I am looking forward to sewing more garments in the future! And thank you for reading!

-Wendy xo