Years ago, while vacationing in Las Vegas, I purchased a very comfortable, soft, knit, sleeveless dress with a drawstring waist and front pockets. This was the perfect casual summer dress. A great dress to have for going to the beach or going shopping. Of course, one can never find the exact dress years later, so there is only one thing to be done. Make one.

I hunted on the internet until I finally found a similar (but not exact) dress pattern. It was the Connie Dress Pattern (from the UK Sewmag site https://www.sewmag.co.uk/free-sewing-patterns/connie-dress#) and it was a free printable download. Nice! The only trouble with the download was that I could not get it to resize to the proper dimensions. It was supposed to print out with a test box a certain size. Mine did not and I could not get it to print properly. However, I cut it out anyway in a larger size so that I could account for the wrong dimensions. This worked and the dress fit beautifully.

The pattern was so easy to make and I learned a couple of new techniques that I have a feeling I will incorporate into future patterns that I make. One technique was sewing the neck facing into the neckline. In this pattern, one shoulder seam is sewn together and then the open neck facing is put in place and sewn in. After this, the neck facing and remaining shoulder seam are sewn. Brilliant! No trying to get a circular facing to fit into a circular neck. I absolutely love this method! The other technique I learned was to use bias binding to form a casing inside the garment for the drawstring. Fast and easy.

Why is it that the UK has all the good patterns, merchandise, stores, etc… for sewing and knitting products? I am jealous. Anyway, thank-you for sharing via internet to those of us in the States.

As always, Happy Sewing!