Stylish Dress Book - Dress Y

My cat, Batman, deems this dress worthy of his gaze

Wearing my crazy cat lady dress to work recently must have signaled my newfound interest in sewing my own clothes, because a couple of weeks ago, Patty loaned me her copy of Yoshiko Tsukiori's Stylish Dress Book: Wear with Freedom. I've been enamoured with the breezey, casual Mori Girl look for a couple of years, and the tops and dresses in this book seemed perfect for that kind of look. Not to mention that loose-fitting clothing in the blazing Houston summers makes the heat a bit more bearable. 

I love almost all 26 of the pieces in this book, but dress Y and T were the ones that really captured my fancy. I opted to go for dress Y first since the contrasting collar looked simpler. The book includes patterns for sizes 6 to 16. I decided to go for a size 10 based on the bust measurement (waist measurements don't look like they factor in much to these loose-fitting garments) and figured I'd just take in any big areas. No muslin because I'm impatient! #yolo.

As soon as I unfolded the enclosed pattern pieces to start tracing, I froze up like a possum in fear. Lines overlapped lines in a mind-cramping mess! It turns out that all 26 patterns had to be crammed onto 3 double-sided sheets of paper, resulting in a wormhole of pattern pieces. Additionally, the pattern pieces for each dress are spread over multiple sheets instead of keeping them together. Trying to locate the correct pattern piece, extract/trace it with surgical precision, and add seam allowances after (they aren't included in the patterns) felt like playing some sick, twisted Highlights magazine game I never agreed to. 

Luckily, extracting the pattern was the hardest part of the process. The directions were simple and any confusion I had was remedied by the diagrams. Not having to worry about zippers, buttons, darts, or pleats simplifies things. I finished this dress in less than three hours!

For the main fabric, I used Pat Bravo's Millefiori print from her Bespoken collection. I used her Sequins print in amethyst from the same collection for the collar and trim. Both were on sale for $7.50/yd at Hawthorne Threads. If I had a do over, I would have gotten the Sequins print in turquoise because the two didn't contrast as much as I'd hoped. 

As anticipated, the fit was loose yet comfy. Being petite, I opted to take in the side seams an inch on either side at the waist to avoid looking like I was drowning. It's still a loose fit, just less tent-like. For future dresses, I think I will stick with size 10 and just take in seams as needed since it fit well everywhere else. 

I wore it to work on Tuesday and my coworkers thought it was really cute! It's also really comfortable to wear. I'm quite pleased with it, and I can't wait to make another dress from this book!