Completed: Lady Skater Dress

This Lady Skater Dress is the dress you’ve seen on yesterday’s post. These pictures were taken just before the ones with the Miette Cardigan, and you can see it because my hair is still wet from the shower (although it dried fast with the heat we still have here). I confess I wanted to make this dress since I saw Lladybird’s version.

Contrary to what the designer recommends and to what I’ve repeated to myself several times, I didn’t make a muslin. This fabric was the cheapest cotton knit fabric that I found nice enough to buy (still, 11€/m). Something that I would like to wear but something not so precious that if I didn’t get a perfect fit would make me cry for nights on end. And, honestly, how many people have at home cheap knit fabric for muslins? And the cheapo doesn’t stretch and recuperate in the same way as the good one, so why bother? Anyway, it’s very difficult to get knit fabric in the shops here, so anytime I need it I have to order it online.

As I didn’t make a muslin, the fit was not perfect, but good enough for me (knit fabrics are sooo forgiving). I cut a size 3, as my  body measurements suggested. I could have shorten the bodice a bit, since the dress waist sits 1 inch lower than my natural waist, but anyway, many RTW dresses and skirts I have fit like this, so it’s something I could live with. And since I like knee-length dresses I didn’t shorten the skirt, so I guess overall it’s ok.

What I was not very happy with was the shoulders and arms fit. I don’t have any pictures before I fixed this, but believe me, it was too loose there. Instead of doing things right (muslin, modify pattern, etc.) I just took half an inch at the armpit like you see in the picture below:

The pattern recommends using the “lightning bolt” stitch instead of a normal zigzag (what I used for knits other times) but my machine had problems with it, getting the fabric stretched out sometimes, so I used mostly zigzag anyway. I fact, sometimes I mixed both as you can see in the picture above. Not neat, I know, but I don’t own a serger and nobody will see it. I didn’t use clear elastic since it’s almost impossible to find here and some shops were closed in August (Madrid really stops during this time of the year). I just used regular polyester elastic.

Anyway, if you do things the right way, the designer explains some of the fit adjustments that you could need for this dress. In theory I should have shortened the bodice by 1 inch and probably cut a smaller size for the shoulders/arms part (or maybe the whole dress), but I think the result is decent enough for a first time. BTW, I love how the skirt flows with the wind.

Since I have a big bum, I also suspected beforehand that I would need a sway back adjustment. I have some wrinkles there but nothing too obvious to stop me from wearing this dress. Maybe next time.

As I’ve said, this was not the most expensive knit fabric I found, and I’m starting to see why. There are a couple of tiny pills, and where that happens, the print comes off, showing some very little white spots. I washed the fabric before making the dress and I don’t know how it wear out overtime. We’ll see.

A knit dress could be not as elegant as one made with a woven fabric, but they are so comfortable that I see myself wearing this more often on casual days.