I don’t even know where to start on this one – let’s start with all the good and I’ll share my woes at the end! If you haven’t checked out the Lodo Dress from True Bias, you should stop reading this and go and check it out (but then come back and read the rest!).
The Lodo Dress is a knit dress pattern with a new take on the t-shirt dress. It comes in two views – a shorter view (seen here) and a more midi length with a slit in the back. It is designed for stable knits such as ponte, scubas and the like.
I love True Bias – I had the opportunity to take a workshop with Kelli in the Fall at Stitch Sew Shop and made the Southport Dress that I just love! We had the best time that weekend and you can read all about it here. I am heading to Camp Workroom Social this fall and am so excited to see her again (anyone else heading there too??).
I am usually not a dress girl and I am usually not a non-waist defined dress girl – but this has changed my mind on both those things. I love the shape and silhouette that the Lodo Dress has. It is very flattering on everyone I’ve seen but at the same time is so comfortable. I made it for a bachelorette weekend in Disney World next week, but after making it Tuesday night after work I wore it right to work on Wednesday.
This is actually my second attempt at a Lodo dress – I had some issues with my first one attaching the facings. It was un-salvageable – at least I lost patience to fix it. Trying to seam rip a knit is sometimes more than you can handle. You have to take the facings very slowly as you use a wove fabric (I used a quilting cotton) to a knit fabric. This time it was a breeze….more on that later.
The best part of this dress for those of us that have limited sewing time is how quickly it comes together – from cutting to finished product it took me about 2 hours (including a quick dinner break)! You can’t really beat that.
I did sew mine entirely on the sewing machine (I should have used a serger…see below), and I think that’s the easiest way to sew this dress. In the future, I will continue to sew mine on the sewing machine instead of the serger.
Okay, so the bad news. I used a “mystery” stash fabric for this dress. Sometimes that’s a good thing, and sometimes you get surprised. It was with my other knit fabrics and it kinda felt like a knit so I went with it. When I was cutting it out, I noticed it had a twill like quality, but figured it was a knit so I moved on. After scouring my gmail for where I could have gotten this fabric, I determined it had to be the Stretch Bottom Weight Twill I bought from Style Maker Fabrics.
This dress fits amazing, I love it and the fabric has such a nice drape – so I wouldn’t change a thing. Except, I should have finished the seams. I never use a sewing machine to sew knits – I am a serger fan x 1,000. But this time I decided oh I’ll just not finish the seams and use a sewing machine. Well, now the dress will be dry clean only.
I got a little nervous if I was to make it in a knit, would it fit as nicely? After chatting with Kelli and she felt like in a stable knit (as recommended) it would be totally fine and have the same shape.
I didn’t want to turn this post into why my dress isn’t what I thought it was and how I made a huge mistake, because I really love the dress! The only loss is it’s not a throw in the washing machine kind of dress. I think I have some true ponte in my stash – I think I’ll give it another go!
So I’ll end my ramblely post with a question – how do you store your stash fabrics so you know what they are?
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Love your dress – the LBD is always a good staple to have in your wardrobe 🙂 I store my fabrics mostly in bins (although those bins in some cases have filled and I’ve resorted to zip locks on top of the bins!) and they are labelled fairly accurately ie. silks, $$$ wovens, knits, $$$ knits, practice knits, practice wovens etc. In some cases where the fabric is washed as well I also mark that on the labels. I don’t file my fabrics according to colour but more about whether it’s pricey or knits or wovens. I have a completely different spot to store bulky knits such as sweater woolens. I also have a separate bin for exotics and kits.
Nice dress- but why does using a sewing machine mean you can’t wash it? I’ve been sewing clothes for forty years, and only had an overlocker for the last 5…all my clothes have been washed, many times…
You can zig zag edges, overlock edges, turn under and stitch, Hong King finish, hand overcast…
Confused!
Sorry for the confusion! Because I thought it was knit – because I didn’t think too hard – I didn’t finish my seams at all. I would have normally finished the seams somehow, but didn’t do so because I thought it was a knit (which wouldn’t require finishing the seams).
Well…you can still finish them afterwards lol
Go on, you know you want to!
Love the dress and the pattern. I can’t wait to try this out with some fabric I have had for a long time. I never finish seams on knits either.