The Sara Project

Hey Everyone!

I’m really excited to share this dress I made in collaboration with Chalk and Notch. They reached out to me and asked if I would make one of their patterns with a holiday twist. I knew instantly I wanted to make the Shay Dress. I love the romantic and feminine details.

As for fabric, I struggled a little bit here. I wanted to make something obviously holiday but also casual enough I could wear it year round. I almost never have an excuse to dress super fancy so I didn’t want to go that route. After lot of searching I found this really nice rust/lavender woven gingham fabric from Fabric God Mother. What I loved most about it is that it came in two different check sizes in the same color ways. I wanted to give this dress pattern something special, and knew I didn’t want to make it in one solid fabric. The second I saw this gingham option I grabbed my fashionary sketch pad and came up with a really fun design to make this dress unique.

I needed to make a few adjustments to the neckline of this pattern to make it work for me. I brought the neckline in and up but kept it as close to the original neckline swoop shape. I also raised the back neckline. My final pattern pieces looked like this:

I then proceeded to make a muslin to make sure everything fit correctly. This is a fitted bodice and you definitely want to get it just right. After sewing the bodice pieces together, I pinched out a little extra fabric right above my bust, and pinned it to measure how much and where I needed to adjust my pattern. I then marked it onto my original pattern pieces and trimmed off the excess. The red lines in the picture above indicate where I trimmed up the extra fabric to give you a visual of what that looked like.

Once my bodice was fitting just right, I was ready to begin. I did sew the bodice as well as the bodice lining in my toile to make sure the fit would be right, the lining adds extra thickness. Sewing up the dress was very straight forward and enjoyable to make. I’ll admit I watched all of the Twilight series (again) while sewing it up and enjoyed every minute of it. 😉

I cut out my pieces slowly making sure to pattern match my plaid pieces where possible. I also cut my button placket on the bias to add even more variety. I sewed up a size 4 and only had to adjust slightly along the bust area, otherwise it was just right.

One thing I learned and will keep with me FOREVER is to use a tricot or knit interfacing, even when sewing with woven fabrics!! Duh!! When it comes to collars, button plackets, sleeve plackets, etc, it’s SOOO much easier to ease the pieces in with a stretchy interfacing attached to the pattern pieces verses a woven interfacing. I’m honestly embarrassed by this realization, I should have figured this out long ago haha. That’s your hot tip for the day if you’ve never tried this before like me. Thank you Gabriela!

When I was close to finishing my dress, it had a very kitchy feel to me, almost Little House on the Prairie. But once I finished the little details like button hols and hem, I started to love it more again. I always do this to myself, I second guess my style choices and sometimes don’t even wear the garment that much right after finishing it. Then a year later it’s my new favorite garment. I don’t get it.

The buttonholes are always perfection with my Baby Lock Brilliant sewing machine. Always so quick and easy.

I really do love this dress and the homestyle Christmas feel it’s vibin’. The pleats and ties on the sleeve are such a sweet tough to this dress, and I honestly just had so much fun piecing it together and planning out how I would mic and match the two fabrics. I know I will wear this dress for years to come.

I apologize, I didn’t take many photos of this project along the way, but I did take a lot of videos. You can find a reel on my instagram account: @thesaraproject_