Having selected the Sinclair Yasmin pattern to modify for the prom dress and prototyped bodice modifications, my next step was to prototype with a tulle overlay and sleeves, and a full circle skirt. Since the floor-length gown version will require a lot of fabric and I fear I won’t get it right the first time, I decided to prototype a knee-length dress with some inexpensive blue daisy embroidered tulle on Etsy and matching blue nylon spandex for the lining (tranquil aqua 82% nylon, 18% spandex, 210 GSM stretch bodycon satin from Zelouf Fabrics).

I modified the bodice pattern using the same approach I used for my daughter’s top to add deep front and back Vs. Then I mashed the Yasmin sleeve with the bishop sleeve pattern from the Sinclair puffed sleeve add-on pack so that the puffed sleeves would fit the Yasmin armscye. I used the full skirt pattern (with pockets!) from the Sinclair flared skirt add-on pack for the Valley Skater Dress. I prepared all the pattern pieces in Affinity Designer and projected them onto the tulle and lining fabric. In total I cut 16 pieces from the lining fabric and 12 pieces from the tulle fabric (but who’s counting?).

I wanted to attach the tulle to the corresponding lining pieces for all the bodice pieces so I could treat them each as one unit. My original plan was to do this with my serger (and I even rethreaded it with a suitable light grey thread), but I found the serger stitching a bit bulky for this purpose. Instead I used a zigzag stitch on my regular sewing machine to prepare the lining-tulle units. In the end I sewed the whole dress with my sewing machine and did not use my serger at all. I think I could have used it to join the 4 pieces of the lining for the circle skirt, and when I sew the full-length skirt for the prom dress I may go ahead and do that.

Once I had the lining-tulle units prepared, I worked on creating the micro pleats in the bodice. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it might be with the units properly joined. I did use scotch tape to hold down both sides of the pleats. I had marked the dots for pleating with a pink washable Crayola marker, and some of them are just barely still visible on the finished dress. Next time I will mark them closer to the edge to avoid that problem.

Next I sewed the bodice together, carefully wrapping both sides of the shoulder seams. I hand basted the waistband to the bodice to keep all the pieces aligned. Even so, the point in the center front did not come out very sharp and I ended up redoing it. Actually, that point did not come out particularly sharp in my previous practice pieces either. I found that if I sewed one side of the V all the way to the edge and then sewed the other side, it was easier to get a sharp point than if I sewed it all in one line with a pivot at the point. Someone probably has pointers on how to do this better than I did.

Once the bodice was fully assembled, I tried it on with some trepidation, as I wasn’t entirely sure it would fit. While the lining is a nice 4-way stretch fabric, the tulle only stretches side-to-side (horizontally the way I cut the bodice), and not nearly as much as the lining. Thankfully, I was able to get the bodice on (and off), but it was a bit tight and suffered a bit from not having any real vertical give. This wasn’t so noticeable in the front due to all the pleating, but the back had numerous creases and pulled against the back of my bra in an undesirable way. I also wasn’t entirely happy with the way the back V folded under without quite laying flat; again, the front V worked fine.

I decided to unpick the side seams and add a resew with a wedge of fabric inserted. I experimented with different size and shapes of fabric based in. Eventually I settled on adding about a 1.25 inch wedge on each side at the bottom of the waistband that tapered to nothing when it reached the armscye. I cut the wedges from the lining, layered them with the tulle, and reassembled the bodice (you can see the wedge below the armpit in the finished dress). I will add a bit extra to the side seam of the front and back bodice on my daughter’s dress, baste the side seams, and adjust until I get it right. Even after adding the wedge, I still wasn’t fully happy with the when the back V was folded, but decided to hold off on further modifications until I attached the skirt, as I expected the weight of the skirt to pull the bodice down a bit.

I moved on to the sleeves. I sewed the long seam of the tulle sleeves and then basted and sewed the sleeves to the armscyes. I then folded the sleeve wrists under about half an inch and stitched down a casing, leaving a small opening to add 1/4-inch elastic. It all worked out fine, but as soon as I finished the sleeves I could see that they were not as big and puffy as my daughter wanted. I’m happy with them on my dress, but I will need to go much bigger on my daughter’s dress. I tried on the bodice to confirm that the sleeves fit and that I could still get the bodice on and off without ripping anything. This was not too difficult as long as I took it off by slipping my arms out of the sleeves and then dropping the bodice past my hips rather than trying to pull it over my head.

Next I worked on the skirt. I had cut the full-circle skirt in four sections with pockets in the lining. I attached the pockets flush with the top of the skirt, understitched the pockets and stitched the top and bottom of the pockets into the side seam with pocket openings from 1.5 inch to 7 inches. Once the lining was assembled into a complete skirt, I assembled the four tulle sections, stitching with a narrow zigzag stitch. I did not add tulle pockets, but left slits to match the pocket openings in the lining, as I have seen with some ready-to-wear dresses. Next I machine basted the tulle to the lining at the top of the skirt, and then hand basted the skirt to the waistband. I tried it on and everything seemed to have worked, so I went ahead and sewed the skirt to the waistband with a zigzag stitch.

The moment of truth: I tried on the whole dress… and it fit! And it mostly looked good, but I still wasn’t happy with the back V. I futzed with the folds on the back V a bit and top-stitched the V along the edge. I still wasn’t entirely happy with it so I trimmed the underfold of the V down to about half an inch and then added another row of top stitching at 3/8 inch. This resulted in a much cleaner finish. I plan to modify the pattern for my daughter’s dress to use this approach from the beginning.

The last step was the hem. A full-circle skirt involves a lot of hemming (and usually a lot of hem tape). There are multiple techniques for doing this, which all require multiple passes with a sewing machine or iron. The lining fabric doesn’t unravel or roll so I could have left it unhemmed but hemming gives a nicer finish. I decided to invest in a folded hem foot (Bernina 66 foot) to do the hem in just one pass. It took some practice to learn how to use my new foot, but once I got going I did the whole hem in about 45 minutes without using any hem tape. I expect without the hem foot it would have taken a couple of hours. As the full-length skirt on the prom dress has an even bigger circumference, this approach will save even more time. I did not hem the tulle as that seemed completely unnecessary.

The dress looked great on, and with its 50s vintage vibe, I decided it totally needed a crinoline. (I also love that I achieved a vintage look with modern spandex fabric and thus no need for a zipper or fasteners of any sort). I tried it with my daughter’s short crinoline, but it was too puffy, so I found an inexpensive 50s crinoline available for next-day delivery on Amazon with a smooth waist and puffs that start a bit further down. I can wear it sticking out the bottom of the dress or pull it up further to hide it. The dress is totally wearable without the crinoline but so much more fun with it! I don’t really have an occasion to wear this dress, but I will find one.

I’ve been holding onto this fabulous ivory and black geometric polyester double-knit fabric since last spring, with the plan to turn it into a long-sleeve Sinclair Valley Knit Skater Dress. The fabric has some body (and just barely enough stretch for this pattern) and a nice drape, so I decided to use the full-circle skirt from the add-on pack for a skirt that would naturally poof out. Unfortunately, I didn’t have quite enough fabric, so it took some tetrising to cut it all out (with my projector), and I ended up having to split two of the skirt panels in half and turn the long sleeves into 3/4 sleeves. But by splitting the skirt panels I was able to avoid a seam in the center front of the dress.

I made the pattern mostly as written, lengthening the bodice as recommended when omitting the waistband. I also used my Bondi screwp neck modification, as I have done for my previous Valley dresses. This time I sewed the pockets to the waistband as the pattern suggests, since this is a pretty stable knit and I wasn’t worried about the pockets getting pulled down. I did lengthen the pockets by about an inch to reduce the risk of my phone falling out. The pockets on the finished dress are great and with the full skirt they are nearly invisible, even when full.

This is the first Valley I sewed with a serger, and it went very quickly. It only took about 3 hours to sew after cutting the fabric. Of course, it took a while to hem the 13-foot circumference full-circle skirt. But my teen daughter approves and says the full-circle skirt was definitely worth the effort. Indeed, this is a dress that really is fun to wear.

A few weeks ago I made a Sinclair Serena dress to try out the pattern, which I plan to use to make a fancy gown. The pattern worked out pretty well in double-brushed polyester, but I’m planning to use a fancy (expensive) custom-printed crushed stretch velour fabric for the gown, so I decided to make the pattern again with some cheap velour. I bought two yards of purple crushed panne velour from Cali fabrics for $4.99 a yard. This fabric is pretty and has similar stretch as the fabric I plan to use, but it is not as soft and doesn’t feel quite as nice. It is also not really purple – I would call it lavender, but it is not the royal purple shown on the website. This is not meant as a high-end fabric, but it is fine for a muslin.

I projected the pattern and cut out the velour. I decided to use a purple ITY fabric for the lining pieces. Then, throwing caution to the wind, I decided to sew the dress together using my brand new Serger, having never serged before. It actually wasn’t that hard, except for the fact that velour is a super slippery fabric and no amount of pinning could get it to hold still. The slippery ITY lining just made it worse. There are parts of this pattern that call for two layers of regular fabric and 2 layers of lining, and getting them all lined up to complete the jigsaw puzzle bodice was a real challenge. I eventually basted together the layers before sewing, and it was fine. But parts of it that I sewed early on are not quite lined up right, although I managed to mostly hide them. Note to self when I make the gown, plan to do a lot of basting.

Besides being very slippery, the velour as almost no vertical stretch. That doesn’t seem to be a problem with this pattern, other than reducing the ability to ease out mistakes. Somehow the back ended up being and inch longer than the front when all was said and done (I’m pretty sure it was cut correctly, but there were numerous sewing errors), and I ended up just trimming it before hemming.

I did make a few mistakes that are mostly attributable to learning how to use my serger while making this dress. I now have a full understanding of the knife function and how not to use it when turning a corner. Repairing some of these mistakes might be one of the reasons the back ended up longer than the front.

I did manage to fix some problems from my last Serena dress. This time I added clear elastic to the neckline for good measure, and I sewed the crossover all the way to the edge. With both of these improvements, there is no possibility of drooping. I also did a better job stretching the armhole bands around the curves, so they look better than last time. In order to reduce pocket flapping,I made the pocket bags a little slimmer and attached them to the skirt a bit higher than the pattern calls for – about 1 inch below the point where the skirt meets the bodice. I made the pocket openings a bit smaller to keep my phone from falling out. I used the velour for the back pocket bags and the lining for the front to reduce bulk. But the lining still peaks out a bit so I may just use the velour for both sides next time.

The good news is that the whole dress did end up coming together nicely. The proof of concept worked and the muslin is a dress I would actually wear in public. In fact I wore it to an outdoor theater production this evening and can report it was both stylish and confortable.

I saw the Sinclair Serena crossover knit dress pattern a while ago and was a bit intimidated about sewing the crossover part, which is a bit of a jigsaw puzzle. But I recently was looking for a knit dress pattern that would look great in a full length formal gown, and Serena looked like it could be adapted for this purpose. The gown project will be another story for later, but in the mean time I thought it prudent to sew a short version of this dress with inexpensive fabric to make sure this was going to work. So earlier this month I projected, cut, and sewed Serena in one weekend. Serena is an old pattern without projector files, but I was able to create projector files with pdfstitcher. [Correction: There are projector files, I just some how missed them!]

I used the 4 petite pattern and cut the skirt 1 inch below the above-the-knee length, making it sit exactly at the knee on me. I selected a floral double-brushed polyester for this dress. This is a light-weight, stretchy, and inexpensive fabric that’s very comfortable to wear. I looked at photos from others who have made Serena and saw some interesting approaches to color blocking this dress that really highlight the crossover (and/or the bust) and the jigsaw puzzling involved, but my favorites were all made from a single fabric print without any color blocking. Without the color blocking, you an hardly see the crossover, but you still get a lovely fitted top with a skirt that hangs from a point that I think will work really well for a gown.

Of course I made it with the pocket option (and added about an inch to the bottom of the pocket bags to make sure my phone doesn’t fall out of my pockets)! The pockets are great, but I think the openings sit a little low so in the next dress I will probably raise them about 2 inches higher. The pockets flop around when filled since they aren’t attached to anything except the side seams since there is no waistband to attach them too (and even if there was I probably wouldn’t attach them because I don’t like it when pockets distort the waist band), but I think they would flop less if they were attached higher. My favorite dress pockets are still the Alana dress pockets — no flopping or distorting — but that style of pocket only works with princess seams, alas.

The jigsaw puzzle was not actually too difficult to solve, although I do recommend reading the pattern tutorial very carefully and watching that you don’t try to assemble any of the pieces upside down or backwards (I had a couple of close calls). The pattern suggests optionally adding some elastic to the top edge of the v-neck if it doesn’t recover well from a stretch. I tested the recovery as suggested and it seemed fine, so I did not add the elastic. I have a very slight droop in the top layer of the crossover that might have benefited from adding the elastic, or at least a bit of fusible knit interfacing (maybe next time!), but it is subtle. (Later I realized that I actually ended the seam that holds the crossover down too early. Had I brought the same all the way to the center of the crossover it might not have drooped.) There is also optional top stitching that I opted out of, with no regrets. The arm holes are finished with a binding that I didn’t do a great job of attaching, especially on the left side, so the bottom of the armhole flops out a tad. Next time I will need to take more care with positioning and stretching the band. Most of these are issues that probably nobody would notice except me.

Anyway, I’m quite pleased with Serena, and am already planning to make another one soon.

In October 2022 I ordered some funky paisley ITY fabric I found on Amazon and used it to make a Sinclair Joanne dress. I sewed it according to the pattern as written in size 4p with the knee length option and used clear elastic to stabilize the waist. I used my go-to HeatNBond Soft Stretch for hemming and zigzagged over the edge. I was planning to make it three-quarter sleeves but after looking at some lovely examples of the flounce sleeve on other sewist’s dresses I decided to give flounces a try. I was worried that the flounces would be difficult to implement and would get in the way when wearing. However, the flounces were very straightforward to sew, and I was able to omit hemming the ITY. Positioned at the elbow they don’t tend to get in the way either. And they look awesome with this particular fabric design.

This was my first time sewing ITY and I was worried that it would be slippery and hard to sew, but it actually wasn’t bad at all. I also wondered whether I would need to line it as it has a lot of white areas that are not 100% opaque. It seems fine without linking. Sewing the bodice with the faux wrap looks tricky as it relies on proper stretch for it all to work out. But I found if you follow the instructions it all comes together pretty easily.

One minor complaint is that the clear elastic at the waist can sometimes be uncomfortable since you can end up with plastic elastic rubbing against your skin. I think I might use braided elastic or forgo the elastic in the future.

My biggest complaint was that my phone kept falling out of the pockets, which aren’t deep enough, especially with slippery ITY fabric. I ended up grafting another two inches to the bottom of the pockets after the fact to solve the problem. If I make this dress again (I’m sure I will!) I will definitely make the pockets deeper.

This dress has been great to wear in fall and spring weather, and with a sweater or jacket on chilly days. The print I used is fairly eye catching and regularly brings complements.