Moonshine Isabella Dress

Before I tell you more about the dress that I made, I have to tell you a very sweet story. It sort of makes my eyes well up thinking about it. Last month, I had a booth at Quilt Market. I had a small amount of my new fabric to work with; I still wanted to make and display my bags, but I wasn’t able to make that many of them because most of my bag patterns are good-sized and require about a yard of fabric. My vision was to display them on the shoulders of dress forms. Obviously the dress forms needed to be wearing some sort of clothing.

I asked my friend Kay Whitt of Serendipity Studio if she might be interested in making clothing for the dress forms from her upcoming patterns (she usually releases at least 3 new clothing patterns for each Quilt Market), and miraculously, she said yes. I got an e-mail from her the week before Market, saying that the samples were underway. Kay asked me if pink would be okay for one of the garments, and that she had a surprise for me. At the time, I thought the surprise was this beautiful dress that Kay made for a taping of Sew It All TV last year. Boy, was I wrong.

Here’s a photo of part of the part of my booth with the dress forms (courtesy of Pellon):

Kay rolled up into Quilt Market on Friday afternoon like the little bit of Texas sunshine that she is. She had the clothes, and helped me style them on the dress forms (two of which are hers). Then she announced that she had made all of the clothes in MY SIZE, so I had to keep them.

Can you believe that?!? Two beautiful coats, a dress, and two tops, all mine?! And I didn’t even have to sew them.

So here is me modelling clothes that were sewn for me by Kay Whitt (who is certainly a perfectionist and so I am lucky to have things that are sewn nicely for once, lol!).

The first shirt is a beautiful fuchsia Rhiannon Shirt made in Art Gallery Oval Elements. It’s so loose and airy in the beautiful Art Gallery substrate.

Next is an Isabella Dress made in the tunic length in an Art Gallery solid. I love the charcoal color and feel like this can be styled with a lot of different looks.

Here’s another Isabella Dress, this time made in knee-length. This is also made in Art Gallery Oval Elements. It fits like a dream, and it’s in my favorite color.

This is a Dakota Duster made with soft pink silk. I have never had something made of silk before, and this one is absolutely beautiful. I think this was the most-admired piece of clothing in my booth. It’s amazing with the little ruffle on the back.

And finally, my favorite, another Dakota Duster with a mandarin collar and that pretty scallop. This jacket was made with a faux-suede from Shannon Fabrics. It totally looks like real suede. Kay says it is very easy to sew with and can be ironed. Beautiful.

Kay is an unbelievable friend. I don’t think words can express how much she has done for me these past few years. She’s been a mentor, friend, and she always tells it to me straight. She’s just amazing. If you liked any of the clothing patterns I just showed you, I hope you’ll check them out at Serendipity Studio.

So! Now on to the dress I did actually make myself, ha! I started working on the dress yesterday morning. I got everything cut out and then went to vote. I decided to make my dress in Tula Pink Moonshine. I bought 2 yards of each of the deer colorways, and I *just* happened to have enough to make the dress (but of course now I will have to replace this fabric, as the deers appear to be going like hotcakes – I had trouble getting this when the fabric first came out because everyone seemed to be sold out right away).

I chose to make the sweetheart neckline, since I love a sweetheart neckline (Kay asked earlier this summer on her Facebook page what type of garment people wanted to see, and I had suggested a sweetheart neckline, so my wish came true!). I can generally just make any Serendipity Studio pattern straight up with little to no fitting modifications. Since Kay had already made this dress for me, I admit I cheated and was able to make it straight up without trying it on throughout like I normally would, since I already had a finished dress in my possession. This dress was a pleasure to sew. There are several panels for the skirt front and skirt back, but they all went together very nicely and I slowed down a bit and had a very enjoyable sew (normally I’m in a hurry to get to the finish). But I pressed and serged everything carefully and it was a lot of fun. The dress has facings along the neckline, which gives a very pretty finish.

You can choose to either insert buttons or snaps down the front. Since the dress Kay made me had buttons, I opted for snaps with my Snap Setter tool (okay, I do admit to going slow, but when I got to the finishing I admit I went with the snaps because they were tons faster than buttons, lol). I do like the snaps, I feel like they still look really snazzy. In the instructions, Kay recommends to go with the piping underneath the bodice area, which I did. This calls for 1/16″ piping, which I was able to find easily enough. It was very easy to assemble the piping with a bit of Pellon Wonder Under tape. There is an option for either a plain hemband or a ruffled hemband, but I do like the plain look so I went with that one.

I have been sewing with Sew Serendipity patterns for about 3 years. I actually made my first one before I even knew Kay. I just liked the style of them, since I like making garments with quilting cottons. They are my go-to patterns. I do try other garment patterns here and there. Sometimes I meet with success and sometimes I don’t (no success on Sunday night…I’m not going to name this other pattern company, so please don’t ask, but let’s just say my garment ended up in the trash, lol). Kay has very well-written instructions (she doesn’t assume you are a seasoned garment sewist and gives plenty of advice throughout the pattern) and uses illustrations which clearly confirm what the instructions are saying. I am always happy to sit down with one of these patterns because I know it will be a successful sew every time.

I hope you enjoyed my dress and the photo overload (it was quite cold taking photos of six garments in Chicago October all at once!).