Paradox dress

What came first: did I imagine this dress or did I copy it from ready to wear? This dress represents the classic chicken or egg paradox. I might have come up with the design for this easy summer play dress, or I may have simply reinterpreted a great dress I glimpsed online in ready to wear- I really can’t remember which came first. 

In any case, I am super pleased with this project.  I had this fabulous blue cotton spandex knit fabric from Mood Fabrics in my stash, and I wanted a dress with plenty of ease of movement and comfort for summer antics.  This is a dress I can ride my bicycle in.

To make this dress I began with my favorite t-shirt pattern which is the Ruska t-shirt in the book Breaking the Pattern by Named Clothing.  And then I simply added a big rectangle skirt.  The only tricky part was the pleats and this is where the fun -and another paradox- began. 

I wanted to use pleats for the skirt for a flatter and fancier finish than gathering the skirt. I decided to use knife pleats which are a simple pleat where the folds are pressed to one side in the same direction which makes the pleat three layers thick. The knife pleat can be used as a style effect or across the entire part of a garment, as I did with this skirt. Knife pleats are the style of pleat used for kilts.

Since I didn’t have a pattern, I needed to figure out how to pleat this entire skirt. Happily, while searching for tips for measuring and creating knife pleats, I found a trick that eliminated measuring and marking. You can simply use a FORK to create knife pleats!   Another paradox. I read the written instructions, but couldn’t puzzle it out until I watched a YouTube instructional video here.  Basically, you insert the fork and turn the fabric and fork toward you for a full turn, and sew. This was not only easy and fast- it was super fun. Watch me start pleating EVERYTHING now.

The only other decision point on this dress is how long to make the drop waist. I am long waisted and fiddled quite a bit, but ended up letting the hemline dictate the placement.