4 years ago
Hello! I’m excited to share with you about making a Suki Dress by Tilly and the Buttons with some fun Crepe fabric from Minerva.
This is a project that started out with a different pattern intention. I thought I would like a jumpsuit with this fabric. I’ve made the Zadie jumpsuit before in a knit fabric so I thought I would use this fabric to make a woven version. Long story short, it took some time between the muslin and the final (and in that time I changed my mind for what I’d like the final pattern to be). I made a Zadie muslin in a chambray (to think through a woven Zadie jumpsuit) but decided for this fabric and the final garment, I would like to try the Suki dress from Tilly and the Buttons’s book, Make it Simple.
If you’re not familiar with this pattern, it’s a cute, drop shoulder, shift style dress. I’m a sucker for shift dresses as I’ve shared before (to work well with printed fabrics by not interrupting the print with extra seams in the bodice).
For reference, the Bust sizing for the pattern is 30” - 48” (76 cm - 122 cm) with Hip sizing of 33” - 51” (84 cm - 129.5 cm). You can sew the dress short sleeved or long sleeved, a shorter or longer length and there is an optional belt and belt loops that can be added.
Treating a drapey fabric:
I decided with this project that I’d like to pre-treat the crepe fabric with starch to make it stable and easy to work with. I always first pre-wash and dry a fabric before starting a project. I decided to do a starch/water soak instead of spraying the fabric with the starch/water solution in a spray bottle (to test if the starch would be more saturated with the soak method). I used a product called Sta-Flo by Purex for this project. I had a large rectangular plastic bin that I set in our bath tub to soak the fabric. There are a lot of different starch products available on the market. This product that I used has a recipe on the back for different ratios of starch/water mixtures (so you can decide if you want a light start or heavy starch application).
I had a long length of this fabric. Before starting the soak process, I layed out the fabric on my cutting table. I cut smaller sections of the fabric from the meterage that I had to make the starch process easier. I layed the largest pattern piece (the Front/Back pattern piece) on top of the fabric on my cutting table and cut two large sections of fabric.
Just as a side note, I did the spray starch method with a different starch product with a Metamorphic dress and a rayon challis fabric as a past Minerva project.
After doing both methods I will say the soak method took a lot more starch product then the spray method. If you don’t mind that, the soak method works great. I did love how evenly saturated the starched fabric was for the process. Whichever method better works for you, go for it!
I made the following mods to the Suki dress:
Added 10.5” to the longer length version of the dress (adding this length at the lengthen/shorten line on the pattern).
Added slits along both sides of the dress (starting the slits at the bottom notch marks that came on the pattern).
Added pockets (from 9.5” down from the underarm). The pocket pattern piece that I added was from the Cinema dress by Liesl and Co (that I’ve made in a previous Minerva project). If you don’t have a favorite pocket pattern piece in your pattern library and don’t want to draft you own pocket pattern, there are free pocket pattern downloads available online.
Graded from a 4 at the top to a 5 through the waist down.
Sewed at a ⅝” seam allowance until just above the pockets. Above the pockets I graded the seam allowance to ⅜” and sewed this area down to the bottom slits at ⅜” seam allowance (for more room in the hip area).
Traced all of the Suki dress pattern pieces to cut out on the Flat instead on the Fold. I added this step as I find I get an accurate, on-grain cut with slippery fabrics when I cut on the flat instead of on the Fold.
I omitted the belt loops and belt that came with the pattern. I wore my final dress with a belt that I made from the Wildwood Wrap dress by Sew House 7. I like to move a belt around on a dress so I didn’t want to be confined to a set spot for the belt on this dress.
This is a project that started out with a different pattern intention. I thought I would like a jumpsuit with this fabric. I’ve made the Zadie jumpsuit before in a knit fabric so I thought I would use this fabric to make a woven version. Long story short, it took some time between the muslin and the final (and in that time I changed my mind for what I’d like the final pattern to be). I made a Zadie muslin in a chambray (to think through a woven Zadie jumpsuit) but decided for this fabric and the final garment, I would like to try the Suki dress from Tilly and the Buttons’s book, Make it Simple.
If you’re not familiar with this pattern, it’s a cute, drop shoulder, shift style dress. I’m a sucker for shift dresses as I’ve shared before (to work well with printed fabrics by not interrupting the print with extra seams in the bodice).
For reference, the Bust sizing for the pattern is 30” - 48” (76 cm - 122 cm) with Hip sizing of 33” - 51” (84 cm - 129.5 cm). You can sew the dress short sleeved or long sleeved, a shorter or longer length and there is an optional belt and belt loops that can be added.
Treating a drapey fabric:
I decided with this project that I’d like to pre-treat the crepe fabric with starch to make it stable and easy to work with. I always first pre-wash and dry a fabric before starting a project. I decided to do a starch/water soak instead of spraying the fabric with the starch/water solution in a spray bottle (to test if the starch would be more saturated with the soak method). I used a product called Sta-Flo by Purex for this project. I had a large rectangular plastic bin that I set in our bath tub to soak the fabric. There are a lot of different starch products available on the market. This product that I used has a recipe on the back for different ratios of starch/water mixtures (so you can decide if you want a light start or heavy starch application).
I had a long length of this fabric. Before starting the soak process, I layed out the fabric on my cutting table. I cut smaller sections of the fabric from the meterage that I had to make the starch process easier. I layed the largest pattern piece (the Front/Back pattern piece) on top of the fabric on my cutting table and cut two large sections of fabric.
Just as a side note, I did the spray starch method with a different starch product with a Metamorphic dress and a rayon challis fabric as a past Minerva project.
After doing both methods I will say the soak method took a lot more starch product then the spray method. If you don’t mind that, the soak method works great. I did love how evenly saturated the starched fabric was for the process. Whichever method better works for you, go for it!
I made the following mods to the Suki dress:
Added 10.5” to the longer length version of the dress (adding this length at the lengthen/shorten line on the pattern).
Added slits along both sides of the dress (starting the slits at the bottom notch marks that came on the pattern).
Added pockets (from 9.5” down from the underarm). The pocket pattern piece that I added was from the Cinema dress by Liesl and Co (that I’ve made in a previous Minerva project). If you don’t have a favorite pocket pattern piece in your pattern library and don’t want to draft you own pocket pattern, there are free pocket pattern downloads available online.
Graded from a 4 at the top to a 5 through the waist down.
Sewed at a ⅝” seam allowance until just above the pockets. Above the pockets I graded the seam allowance to ⅜” and sewed this area down to the bottom slits at ⅜” seam allowance (for more room in the hip area).
Traced all of the Suki dress pattern pieces to cut out on the Flat instead on the Fold. I added this step as I find I get an accurate, on-grain cut with slippery fabrics when I cut on the flat instead of on the Fold.
I omitted the belt loops and belt that came with the pattern. I wore my final dress with a belt that I made from the Wildwood Wrap dress by Sew House 7. I like to move a belt around on a dress so I didn’t want to be confined to a set spot for the belt on this dress.