Alright hagfish. We’re not going to get into your whole eating your prey from the inside out. It’s just too much for me to face in the morning. We’re just going to get right to the plotting. It’s all about my sweater dress obsession today. I have in my possession four yards of super stretchy sweatery knit that I really would like to be a sweater dress. One such as this little number…
{image Avenue}
I’ve been working on this sweater-dress problem for a few weeks, even getting so far as to making a muslin from an adaptation of this pattern from Serendipity Studio. For those of you too lazy to click, the Serendipity dress is a kimono-sleeve style number with a full skirt. I converted the skirt to a straight skirt and tried to get the sizing right for a close fit that stayed a healthy distance away from a stuffed sausage-looking dress. I made the muslin from some strange black stretchy fabric from the Hancock value section. Suffice to say the muslin was underwhelming.
The main trouble I’d been having with coming up with the design I wanted had to do with getting the skirt to hang in a smooth, yet fitted fashion. Since it’s a knit fabric, it’ll be more clingy by nature. I’ve found that I like skirt styles that start out from a high, wide waist band and that fit smoothly over my hips. If there are too many gathers, it’s unflattering. Also unflattering is a waistband closer to my natural waistline as this accentuates my extreme waist tilt! It’s hard enough getting this line right in wovens, working with a knit was baffling.
‘ve been waffling about adding fitting details (like darts) or just going for a gathered waist that’s more like the RTW sweater dresses that seem to rely on shaped waistband made from a rib-knit coordinating fabric and the ‘shape’ is mainly the shape of the body underneath. I also wanted to avoid the shapeless, classic ‘plus size’ knit dress look that screams ‘house dress.’ I decided to utilize a BELT in providing the shape… something closer to this:
{image Avenue}
Ah, the beauty of a belt. I think I will still try to add SOME shaping around the waistband, but that will some mainly from cutting the fabric in one piece with a dip for the waist and then adding some sort of elastic treatment at the waist area. Either a few rows of casing (hard to get straight on a one-piece pattern, easier (but bulkier) if I cut bodice and skirt separately) or the stretch out the elastic while zigzagging directly onto the fabric method. I think I’ll end up wearing with a belt, but it’d still be nice to help things along. I don’t find it super comfy to just belt up something loose – the belt slides around and there are odd folds where the fabric gets bunched under the belt.
Here is a swatch of the fabric I’m working with – it’s very stretchy and thin and will probably need to be lined or underlined.
And here’s a little sketch of where I’m going…
I’ve madly searched the pattern books and haven’t had any luck finding a pattern. I’ve developed a strong desire of a large turtleneck and there just isn’t a lot out there for shaped, knit dresses. I found a few of the housedress-style patterns for knit dresses, and a few tunic patterns with the neckline I have in mind, but no great mix with all the design details I really want: knit fabric, floppy turtleneck, shaped waist, real (NOT dolman) sleeves, straight skirt and available in my size to avoid having to grade AND deal with the perfect amount of ease for a knit pattern. I DID find two patterns that are close, though, so I’m hoping to franken pattern them into the perfect sweater dress!
First up I found this Sandra Betzina tunic pattern from Vogue…
{Vogue 1197}
What I like about this pattern is the neckline, the awesome, super long ruched sleeves and the fact that it is a Sandra Betzina pattern. While I think her style is generally crazy pants, the sizing goes up to a 57″ hip and the instructions are usually great. This particular pattern has raglan sleeves, which I really like as well. Of course, there is no waist shaping to speak of and this isn’t a dress pattern – the tunic only goes midthigh and I want a DRESS!
I also found this Kiwk Sew pattern which at first glance seems almost perfect!
{Kwik Sew 3659}
Look, you slime-producing fish of the deep! A knit dress pattern! What’s not to like?? Well, I’ll tell you. This sweater is cut in only TWO PIECES for the main body! The arms are dolmann style and cut as one with the bodice. Sigh. I really like that sleeve style sometimes, but it’s not comfortable to wear with coats and cardigans – the sleeves bunch up too much! Also, this only goes up to a 47″ hip, so I’d have to grade up; something I’m trying to avoid as I have a hard time compensating for the extra ease in knits. When I grade on my own I end up with something that’s either too small or too giant…
Nevertheless, I got both patterns. my thought is that I can use the Vogue pattern as my main pattern and ‘line up’ the waistline dips of both patterns and then use the skirt shape and length from the Kwik Sew pattern to extend and shape the bottom of the Vogue tunic. The Kwik Sew pattern will be smaller, but I’m hoping that it’ll be easy enough to eyeball the skirt shape and trace on to the sizing lines from Vogue pattern, if that makes sense.
So that’s the plan so far. I will put it into action shortly – last night I mostly finished my Colette Jasmine blouse – tonight I hope to do all the hand sewing to get the collar under control and to hem the sucker, then I’ll move on to operation sweater dress.
Oh, good luck with the sweater dress! I love the look, but haven’t generally loved them on myself—I don’t have the curves required, I think. 😛 I think the belt will be a good look for you, too.
As to hagfish, while they may be personally disgusting, they’re pretty darn fascinating—they’re one of only two kinds of jawless fish today (survivors of earlier radiations of vertebrates) and the way their bodies are put together are just different. They’re neat!
And gross. But still neat.
You are the queen of animal knowledge! I live in a state of pure envy!
They do look fascinating – I am addicted to gawker/gizmodo/lifehacker, and they have a good amount of odd animal posts – that’s where I learned about hagfish. There was some great video of these poor sharks trying to eat the hags and getting a snootful of slime. Ewwwww.
oooooooooooooh, sweaterdresses! Love them! I’m very partial to the one that was recently published in My Image magazine: http://www.myimagemagazine.com/index.php/nl/myimage/patronenmi11w, it’s the one in the bottom left row. It has a nice wide coll, a nipped in waist, and an adorable twotone look.
Oh! That dress look REALLY cute! I’m not familiar with that magazine! Do you have the actual issue?
I’m looking forward to seeing how this turns out. I was given a sweater dress with a cowl/turtleneck for Christmas and I do love wearing it. That said, it doesn’t quite hit my waist right and come in as tight as I’d like to be the most flattering. I love it, but I can see how there is a lot going on in what seems like a simple dress.
I know, right? The simple stuff is HARD!! I’m having more appreciation for when Nina and michaelkors go off on what I think is a ‘boring’ design on project rw. This stuff is hard!
Good luck getting the sweater dress figured out. It’s not a dress, but what about Vogue 8699? It’s a top, tunic and pants pattern but it has the cowl neck you’re looking for, set in sleeves (not raglan). It does have princess seams, but it also has cup sizing (A,B,C,D). Maybe you could lengthen the top into a dress. I’ve made the top twice and planning to make it again. It fits me great with minimum adjusting and it’s very comfortable.
That looks like a good option! I like the princess seams!
I’ve been trying on a lot of sweater dresses with absolutely no luck. So, I can’t wait to see if you succeed with this. Out of curiosity, what would you use to line a sweater dress with? I never know what to line my knits with!
Oh, and hagfish can tie themselves into a knot. Literally.
I know – lining knits stinks! for light colored knits I’m liking powermesh from joann’s – but it’s pricey. For dark knits I just snoop around the swim/dancewear section. I’d gotten some athletic-type black stuff to line this dress, but used it for the muslin and will have to buy more. I don’t think it was REALLY athletic stuff, though – it was holey (like gym shorts from high school), but was a ‘fashion fabric’. I think it was intended for street wear.
THANKS, Patty!
Hey Patty, the best luck I’ve had with knit skirts was to use burdastyle Jenny, make the darts as per usual then gather the excess at the waist. You can see the results here – every other way has hung really oddly off my high hip 🙂
WOW! That dress is smokin’ on you – I remember the post, but didn’t remember it was a knit.
So you used the Jenny without the waistband, correct? My problem with frankenpatterning with knits is conceiving how to meet up two different diameters at the waist, if you know what I mean.
On your dress did you have to gather the skirt?
I think your suggestion is the way for me to go – it’s that draping from the high hip that’s the problem!
Unfortunately my ‘jenny’ skirt is currently in need of more fine tuning. Since I pulled it together I discovered how tilted my waist was, and I had kept widening at the hip instead lowering the front waistband to get rid of lower tummy wrinkles. Also, my ‘jenny’ actually has princess seams as I swiped the skirt pieces from a vogue dress pattern rather than taping together all those jenny pieces- I just used the waistband!
Now I’m thinking about it, the top circumfrence was bigger than the skirt so I gathered the top edge and stitched it to the skirt like you would a woven then added the elastic round the waist. The skirt is straight up jenny without the waistband and with front and back cut on the fold. I think it would work with any skirt you’ve already fitted, though, and if you didn’t want the gathering at the waist you could just grade the top and skirt into each other, maybe? 🙂
Patty – try V8764. It has a high/empire waistline. You can close the v and add a cowl and you can straighten the a-line of the skirt. I immediately thought of it when I saw your inspiration dress. Also this dress can be made using a knit fabric so I think it would work well for what you are attempting to do.
Good luck!
Ooooo… I LOVED your version of that dress! I’ve not made a lot of turtlenecks – NONE big and floppy like I’m envisioning. I’ll have to work through doing it from a pattern. I think I like actual turtlenecks (like, with a fold all the way around the back, not just draped in front) more than the drapey style cowl, but perhaps I should test first.
I’m wondering why the first pattern cannot be lengthened into a dress? And since I recognize several of the above comment-ers as more advanced sewists than myself, now I’m doubly wondering.
My main hesitation with lengthening the first pattern on the fly is that I’m not really sure how long to make it without referencing an actual dress pattern! Also, I’m not that adept at working with knits, so I’d like some sort of guideline for the skirt shape and width!
Make a muslin and measure how much more length you need. As for shape, start bigger and just keeping pinning the seams inward until you get it where you like it. Every knit is going to behave different, so the pinning will probably have to happen no matter what pattern you pick.
Not a cowl, but the HotPatterns Uptown Downtown dress is a popular pattern with a similar look. You can add the infinity scarf for the cowl look and also give yourself other style options w/ and w/o.
I was just thinking about the HP Uptown Downtown dress too. Good suggestion from Debbie! I love that pattern and have it pulled out to make soon too. 🙂