Striped Maxi Dress

I made self drafted dress!!

When I saw this striped maxi dress from Tabitha, I just loved it – especially that big striped circle skirt. I immediately went to Joanns and bought a springy, linen-y striped fabric. This year I finally got around to making it!!

The fabric is very casual, so i knew this would be a weekend attire. I decided to draft the top from a basic dress block. It turned out slightly wide, but I feel a bit lazy about fixing it, especially after I have already installed snap button on one side of the dress.

I was going to do a zipper down the back, but realized in order to get the stripes to match perfectly, AND install a zipper, will require many seam ripper sessions and a bit of cursing. So I opted to close the top on the side instead. I only had to re-do the front chevron pattern twice to get it perfect! I did a little bit of pattern matching with the side seam – I feel pretty smug about all the matching! When I was sewing this, I kept thinking about how scrumptious it all looked. the top is also lined with a white seersucker fabric and the fabric itself are all interfaced. It feels very comfortable yet very sturdy and structured on top.

The bottom is actually circle skirt. Since its a maxi length, even a 60” wide fabric is not enough to cut out a circle skirt- I decided to attach another stripe of fabric on one side the vertical way – I love the asymmetrical-ness that brings to the right side of the skirt!

Also – I didnt want to disrupt the seams by cutting a seam into the skirt  – so I made placket for the first time in a while – and put snap buttons down the placket. This way, I only need to cut 6-9 inches into the skirt and the stripes are undisturbed.

Lastly, I hate hemming a circle skirt. So instead I made yards of bias and sew that onto the hem instead. So much easier (at least for me!). More fun stripes as well!

I dont think I’ve shown this top here, but this dress goes quite well with this top I made a few years ago – which totally didnt come out as i intended but, I started calling those thick bands design features instead of bugs and it works well with many of my outfits. Also, totally wore this for my WFH day today – its still business enough on top!

Thanks for reading!! This dress made me pretty happy and helped me keep sane through a pretty rough (work) week. I feel really really lucky so far, I get to work from home and still able to have an income safely, my girls are for the most part amazing angels and homeschooling them isn’t all that bad. I hope wherever you are in the world, you are going through this pandemic okay!