Tippi Dress (The Birds)

A while ago I bought this bird-print fabric from Girl Charlee with the intent of making a long-sleeved Renfrew top.  But the more I thought about it, the more I felt I'd rather it become a dress.  So yesterday I made another knit Kimono Dress, with a few changes.

This time, rather than folding the neck and sleeve edges back and topstitching, I made narrow binding bands.  I'm really pleased with the more finished look this gives.  For my size (size small), I cut bindings of 1" x 18" for the sleeves and 1" x 22" for the neckline.  I sewed the short ends together, then folded the bindings in half and ironed them along the fold before sewing them to the neckline and armholes.  All seams on this dress were done on my serger.

I did a better job on my elastic application too.  This time, I pressed my waist seam allowance toward the top, and applied the elastic to the very top edge of the skirt.  It went in much more smoothly than the last time, when I tried to sew the elastic to the seam allowance!  However, I cut my elastic longer this time and now I'm wishing I hadn't!  I gave myself an extra inch or two because I felt like after I ate, my first dress was too tight!  But with the longer elastic, the dress doesn't hang in the same way.  Live and learn!

The biggest problem I had with this dress was with the hem, believe it or not.  I've been watching another Craftsy course on sewing with knits, and the teacher recommends using a walking foot.  I decided to try it out.  It worked great on my samples, but made a huge mess of my actual hem!  The fabric wouldn't feed through, and I ended up with a big, tangled, knotted mess on the back and stitches so short they almost cut through my fabric!

I tried it twice and got the same result - I literally spent at least half an hour trying to pick it out!  I finally gave up and just did a straight stitch with my normal presser foot.

When Niecey-poo and family were here, she and my sister-in-law and I went shopping for school clothes at Old Navy (they LOVE Old Navy!).  I happened upon this bird-print scarf that I thought would be a nice compliment to the dress:

You're getting hanger photos because I'm "saving" this to wear on the weekend, with some black flats and a super cute red, black and turquoise hat I have.  Now to figure out where to go in this ensemble!