I sewed a whole shirt dress by hand 🪡

I sewed a whole shirt dress by hand 🪡

This is the zero waste #fczwiris dress by @fibrandclothstudio, in view 4. The pattern is sized for a 30-68” hip. I’m really inspired by Alexis’ hand sewing projects, and decided to try hand sewing this dress.

I wanted the dress to be warm for winter, so I made it in an organic brushed cotton. My fabric was wider than the cutting layout for my size (B), so I used the extra to make a couple of belt loops and a long sash/belt.

Alexis included instructions for sloping the shoulders with darts, which was perfect because straight shoulder patterns bunch up over my bust. This sits nicely on my shoulders and has just the right amount of ease for my preference too!

I’d already bought Alexis’ Hand-Sewing Stitch Guide pdf for my previous hand-sewing projects, and it was very useful for choosing stitches on this one too. I used French and flat-felled seams to enclose all the raw edges. I enjoyed the slow meditative hand stitching process so much that I finally bought @louisaowensonstroem’s Hand Sewing Clothing physical book too – which is gorgeous and came in very handy for the buttonholes and the skirt/bodice gathering. I finished the gathers with bias binding as suggested in that book.

By the end of the project I saw a huge improvement in my stitching, and I’m proud of that. Practice makes progress! It took me longer than a machine-sewn dress would, but it felt like the hardest punch-in-the-face to fast fashion corporations that I could give 😆 Sometimes I found myself slowing down on purpose…