Self-drafted Rib Knit Sweater Dress
Fall is officially here but it still feels like summer for now (hope Im not jinxing it). Joining the Fall Blog Tour hosted by Style Maker Fabrics is a great way to kick my fall sewing motivation into gear. I chose to sew up a rib-knit garment and to add an extra challenge, I decided to copy an old garment I’ve had since 2018. Here are all the details about my new make including the challenges I faced.
Fabric Details
I was gifted this gorgeous charcoal rib sweater knit from Style Maker Fabrics. My favorite thing about this fabric was the weight. It is thick and cozy which is exactly what is needed for the chilly days ahead. One thing I didn’t realize was that it is on the shorter side in terms of fabric width (it’s 48” in width) so you have to make sure you are ordering enough for your project. I ended up using just a little over 3 metres for my dress.
“Self-drafting”
I was able to achieve this look by making pattern pieces from a dress I made in 2018. I made this dress (pictured below) by copying a RTW top I had at the time that I absolutely loved. The trickiest part of this project was figuring out how the twist was put together so in a effort to ease that confusion, I decided to take the dress apart and make pattern pieces from it. I shared most of the process on my Instagram stories.
Once I had pattern pieces ready, I added 1/4” to all seams and 1’2” to the side seams to achieve a slightly looser fit. Part of my desire of wanting to create a new dress was because of high tight my old one had become so the adjustments were necessary or so I thought…
Challenges
Taking my old dress apart in order to draft new pieces was not that difficult. However, I failed to consider a few very important factors while sewing:
The rib knit fabric I was using this time around was a very different type of fabric. This rib-knit has a lot of stretch to it, a much higher recovery rate and behaves very differently from the knit fabric I used years ago (sadly, I’m not sure of the content but feels like some sort of jersey). I should have considered that for negative ease. Instead, I found myself fixing this issue after sewing up the dress (I had to take over 1” off each side of the dress). The rib knit also behaved differently and as you can tell, my front twist sits differently from my previous dress.
Walking foot - I have never owned a walking foot but I can tell you right now that having one will be very beneficial when sewing with rib knit, as it’ll help reduce the amount of “pulling” that happens while sewing. I tried to press seams into submission but it only fixed about 80% of the problem. For now, I have chosen to leave the edges raw until I have some hem tape to assist with a neater finish.
Styling
For a slightly more “sophisticated Fall look, I paired my twist front front dress with my white linen top (also made in 2018?) I used the Melilot Top pattern by Deer and Does Patterns to make that. I think they pair very well together and is the kind of thing I would wear to work on a chilly day. Of course, I see myself wearing it a little more casually on regular days. Will I “self-draft” again? Definitely! But I will be putting a lot more though to it next time.
Happy Sewing,
Sylvia XOXO
