Winter Maxi

 A friend of mine was wearing a long sleeve tee dress the other day (from Anthropologie, of course) and I decided I really wanted one.  I wear maxi dresses in the summertime.  Why not make a winter maxi?  I had just finished my stripey green monster dress at the time.  I was happy with that one but there were definitely a few fit issues.  The main one being the extra fabric and ease at the lower back.  I've never needed a sway back adjustment before, though.  I think the issue was from the fact that I frankenpatterned a tee shirt pattern with my a-line skirt pattern.

Anyway, this time around I made a paper pattern and adjusted for the extra ease on the back piece.  I pinched out a dart in the tee shirt pattern I was using (Burda 2-2011 again) and transferred the new shape to my pattern piece.  It was all highly untechnical.  Then I just free handed a curve out to the skirt portion of the pattern.  My a-line skirt pattern was my guide.  The length was a guess.  It turned out okay.  I mean, it is just a tee shirt dress after all.  There's still some pooling at the back, but not as much.  I could use a bit more length.  But now I have a paper pattern to play with anyway.

The black knit is a cotton/rayon blend interlock.  My body is not smooth enough for one thin tee shirt layer anymore so I underlined the whole thing with a periwinkle blue cheap polyester ITY knit.    It gives it a nice drape but man, is it heavy!  I had no idea it would pull downward so much.  I used black braided elastic around the neckline to keep it from pulling too much and some twill tape at the shoulder seams.

I like the style and the silhouette.  I can see this becoming a very useful pattern with a little more tweaking.

Hope everyone has a great week!