Long time, no sew! My sew-jo has been so low lately. However, I did go on a fun vacation and now I am back with a few new sewing projects on deck! First off, This Dress! I feel like I write this line a lot * This wasn’t what I had planned when I was working on this pattern, but I really love how it turned out* but here we are. 🙂 Keep reading, we are going to talk about it.
The Pattern Details
This is Melanie from 5 out of 4. Melanie isn’t a new pattern, but it is less than a year old and deserves some love. I didn’t even have the pleasure of testing it because I was recovering from knee surgery and sewing was pretty limited. Since I am catching up on all the things the cool kids do, I tackled Melanie!
The pattern has several options
Sizing XXS-5XL * Crew or Scoop Necklines * Sleeveless, Short, 3/4, or long sleeved * Top, Knee, or Tea Length * Side Ruching * Designed for Knits
What I Made
I made size 3x with the included FBA and graded to a 4x from the waist down. I did the scoop neck with short sleeves. Here is the part about things not turning out as intended. 🙂 I removed a couple of inches length from the knee length option because I thought I would wear this as a tunic length top over leggings, but ended up loving it as a shorter dress! Since the side ruching is just drawstring style ties, I can easily shorten the dress to a different length by pulling the drawstrings tighter on the sides. I just used a coordinating fabric scrap to make my ties. You all know how I love to mix prints. In the situation, I didn’t have any scraps from my dress fabric that were long enough to make the ties, so polka dots scraps for the win! I also made the back opening slightly shorter since I didn’t want to have a visible bra band. I wish I would have brought it up an additional .75 inches. That is a tricky measurement on yourself. 🙂 So this is a note for me, the next time I make this dress and I promise, there will be another one!
My Fabric Choice
This lovely poly rayon spandex fabric is from The Fab Clique and as soon as I opened my mystery package I was thrilled! This print is called Penelope’s Garden. These are my colors! While I do love girlie prints, I don’t like froo froo colors! This print is lovely and I adore the colorway. I don’t order many mystery packs of fabric, but this is my second one from TFC and they have both been exceptional. This was a two yard cut and I was able to Jenga the pattern a bit to make it work. Thank goodness for back seams! My leftover scraps were too small to even bother saving and trust me, I don’t throw away usable fabrics! I am so glad I was able to make this dress work with the fabric I had!
#TFCMAYFLOWERS
Remember the hashtag I mentioned? #TFCMAYFLOWERS ?? Want to join the fun? All you need to do is 1. Use fabric from The Fab Clique. 2. Make something lovely related to flowers- (floral print, pattern named after a flower, umm photo staged in a flower garden -ok, I made this one up, but TFC is pretty open to interpretations so it may work, ETC. ) 3. Share your make on all your socials using the #TFCMAYFLOWERS. I can’t wait to see what you come up it!
All Affiliate – Linked Up because your girl needs to buy fabric!
Melanie Pattern from 5 out of 4 is currently on sale for 30% off – Hurry before the sale ends!
Penelope’s Garden – Gorgeous Rayon Spandex blend knit fabric from The Fab Clique
SequoiaLynn Sews 