Akram's Ideas
Akram's Ideas: Valentine Dress for @Fatebee

A Valentine Dress for @Fatebee

For her birthday my sister, @Fatebee, asked me to make her a dress. She wanted something she could wear for Christmas. 

The pattern she wanted me to use was McCall’s 6612 pattern, however I would need to make adjustments since at the time she was very much pregnant and could have popped any day.

McCall's 6612 Cowl Neck Knit Dress
McCall’s 6612 Cowl Neck Knit Dress

Since this particular patter wasn’t exactly a maternity pattern I decided to get one that was her size, and then on that was a plus size and sort of Frankenstein a new pattern between the two.

However, I wasn’t sure if this process would work and I didn’t want to ruin the velvet jersey material that she had bought for this project, so I decided to make a sample, shorter test version of the dress to make sure it all worked. Unfortunately, due to my busy schedule I barely had time to make the test dress and get it to her for her birthday.

Sample Dress made from teal jersy
Sample Dress made from teal jersey

I’d never sewn with knit and knew very little about it, but I still thought the dress came out okay. However, after sending the test dress to my sister, she said she had some fitting issues in the shoulders.

With this new information in mind I decided to make the appropriate adjustments and complete her belated birthday dress in time for Christmas. That was the plan anyways, but instead I got very sick after the semester ended with walking pneumonia. Needless to say I didn’t get around to starting this project until January.

Despite the long wait I finally managed to finish and what was to be a Christmas dress was now a Valentine dress. Also, since I had a little more time and fabric I also sewed up a matching cape with white lining to go with the dress.

Completed dress with cape
Completed dress with cape

I was very happy with how the dress turned out. I tried it on myself and thought it fit well enough in the shoulders, however, my sister must have odd shoulders, because once again she said it didn’t fit in the shoulders. Oh, well, it’s hard to make a dress for someone who is taking their own measurements.

At this point of course my sister was no longer pregnant, she had delivered little Layla at the end of January and so I decided with some left over fabric I would make a matching dress for Layla.

Not knowing what size Layla was, I opted to by a newborn onesie and sew a dress around it. It turned out pretty nice and actually wasn’t a bad idea at all.

Akram's Ideas: Valentine Dress for Layla
Akram’s Ideas: Valentine Dress for Layla

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Akram Taghavi-Burris

designer, writer, educator, tech nerd, crafter, baker, sewer and vintage collector, who Brings Creative & Crazy Ides to Life.

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