I’ve had the idea for this dress in my head for a while. I bought the Flared skirts ADD-ON for the free Sinclair Valley Knit Skater Dress two years ago and initially used it to make three half-circle skirt dresses (two short-sleeve, one long sleeve). I followed up with a 3/4 sleeve full-circle skirt dress, and more recently a short-sleeve half-circle PETS conference dress. But I had planned all along to try a sleeveless Valley dress with a faux-wrap flounce skirt.

Inspired by Bernice’s sleeveless light blue floral faux-wrap flounce Valley Skater dress that appears in the pattern tutorial, when I saw this light blue ITY fabric last summer at Surge Fabrics, I decided to make the same dress. (Bernice’s fabric is actually a thin slub knit, not an ITY.) I bought the fabric in Summer 2024 and didn’t manage to make it before the end of the summer. I wasn’t inspired to make a sleeveless dress last winter. Now that we are heading towards the end of Summer 2025 I decided it was time to make the dress before another summer passes.

The design for the faux wrap skirt is pretty clever. I love the way the flounces are cut out as donuts with the inner edge attaching to the skirt hem. With this approach, there is no need for gathering the fabric to create ruffles. The main downside is that it uses more fabric this way.

This is an older Sinclair pattern and it is not written and tested as thoroughly as the more recent patterns. I found a few errors, including pattern pieces labelled 4 that were shown as being labelled as 3 in the tutorial. More critically, for view F (the flounce wrap skirt) the instructions say to cut two of piece 8, but in fact only one piece 8 is needed (which I didn’t realize until I was sewing it together and wondered why I had an extra piece). The instruction for overlapping and securing the panels for view D should also mention that it applies to view F. A diagram of the assembly with flounce would have been helpful too (although the diagram showing where to attache the flounce pieces on the bottom of page 14 is quite helpful). Despite these issues, the skirt went together fairly easily.

I added pockets to the skirt using the same pocket construction technique as I used for my other Valley dresses. I altered the pocket design slightly so it connects only on the side seam and not the waistband to prevent dragging the waistband down when I put my phone in my pocket. I also extended the bodice by 1.25 inches, as suggested, since I did not add a separate waistband.

I made this dress in a petite 4, my usual size for Sinclair dresses. I recently sized up to a petite 6 for a Valley dress in less stretchy fabric, but that wasn’t needed for this ITY. This was my first time making a sleeveless Valley dress and I was a bit skeptical of the very narrow shoulder seam for the sleeveless scoop neck. But I resisted the urge to alter it and was pleased to see it came out just fine after adding the neck and arm bands.

I followed the neck and arm band instructions but took a few extra steps to make sure they came out well. First I zigzagged over the edges of the bands after folding them so that the layers of the slippery fabric wouldn’t shift. Then I used the “quarter method” for marking and pinning the neck band. I then basted it on with a wide zigzag stitch on my sewing machine, removed all the pins, and finally sewed it on with my serger. I did basically the same thing for the arm bands, but did not use the quarter method since the pattern included a mark for positioning the shoulder seam.

Since the ITY fabric has a nice clean cut edge that doesn’t fray or curl, I decided not to hem my flounces. This saved time and gave the flounces a nice drape.

I finished the dress before lunch and then put it on to wear to our block party this afternoon in the street in front of my house. While I normally wear shorts and a t-shirt to this event, I couldn’t wait to wear my new dress, and it was pretty comfortable to wear in our hot and humid weather. I love the look of this dress from both the front and back! I was also pleased that despite the fact that the inner wrap is connected only at the waistband, it stayed suitably wrapped.