Hey friends!

Today, I wanna share another summer make with you. This is my contribution for the Indiesew blogger post and I am excited to share another pattern by Allie Olson. I love my Highlands dress so much (You can see the Nani Iro double Gauze dress here and the Blue Ikat dress here) both for the precision in fit and the well-explained tutorial that I really wanted to try another one of her patterns next.

The Coram Dress/Top is a boxy raglan type dress with bust and shoulder darts to allow for some shaping and cuffed short sleeves. It is meant for woven fabrics and comes in both top and dress lengths.

The neckline finish is a relatively new technique for me, I haven’t seen many patterns with this kind of a finish and I found it to be less finicky and easier than a regular bias bound neckline. It is sewn like a knit Tee shirt’s neckband and it lays nice and flat without too much effort. I also like how the shoulder darts give more definition to the sleeve shape.

The fabric I used is a voile fabric, another one of my recent acquisitions from India. I must admit, as much as I loved the color and the stripes, I wasn’t looking forward to working with it. It felt shifty and slippery like a chiffon but what do you know?! it presses delightfully well and was surprisingly easy to work with it. Perhaps that is the nature of voile fabrics? I am not sure but it’s a fabric I will happily cut into it again.

Based on my measurements (bust 32”, waist 27.6” and hips 36”) and the finished measurements chart, I made a size 0 but blended out the sleeve size to a size 2. I made no other alterations to the length and fit though I did fiddle a bit with the dart positioning, the price you pay for not making a muslin in the first place. I’m glad it worked out okay though!

I really love this simple striped dress with its curved hemline and can’t wait to try the top version of this pattern just for that little detail. This dress has already been worn a few times and I love comfortable it is. The fabric, despite the drape and lightweight is neither sheer not clingy and is perfect for hot summer days though I imagine it could be worn with tights and boots in cool weather too!

The pattern for this post was provided to me by Indiesew but all opinions are as always my own.

Happy Sewing!