Introducing Project 003: A Shirred Babydoll Dress

In today's post, I share the inspiration for our next drafting project and the schedule of posts for the next few weeks.

Hello my mathy-sewing-friends! How are you doing? Today, I'm kicking off our third drafting project—a shirred babydoll dress. (I'm still surprised at how many 90s fashions have come back in style.) For this project, I was inspired by this Free People dress. I think it's really cute, great for summer weather and it will be fun to draft and make.

My early days of drafting and sewing were, in part, inspired by shopping trips with my mom. If we saw something that didn't fit or was too expensive, she would say, "We can make this ourselves." She demonstrated a great example of confidence that we could make our own patterns and that it would be fun to do. Being able to make something yourself, to your own measurements, is really empowering. (I wrote about this in my Sewing is Magic essay.) We get to solve problems, sew, be creative, and do it on our own. In a big way, we get to demystify the clothing making process and that’s what this Substack is all about.

Our first step today, is to look at our inspiration dress and dissect it. Just like biology class but without the guts and formaldehyde. ;) The dress is the Mila Mini from Free People. Fortunately for us, they have it in a bunch of colors and lots of photos that you can zoom in on to analyze the details.

The first thing we'll notice is that the dress is fitted at the neckline and sleeve hem with elastic. And if you zoom in, it looks like a combination of elastic shirring and narrow elastic in a casing. Next, we can see that it is a raglan or more specifically a peasant style, with a total of four patterns pieces—front, back and two sleeves. (A raglan style has more curves and shaping to it so that it fits the shoulder without any gathers. The peasant style is less structured.)

To draft this dress, we will use the peasant blouse technique from the book How to Make Sewing Patterns by Donald H McCunn. (You can find it on Bookshop.org or Amazon.) This book was first published in 1973. I've had it in my library for decades and while I look at it a lot, I haven't used it very much for drafting. I think it's most useful if you are looking to draft patterns for yourself. It goes into detail of measuring yourself, drafting basic patterns for skirt, pants and bodice, fitting and then adapting the patterns to different styles. I appreciate the style of diagram and I think it's easier to understand than a lot of other pattern drafting books.

The pattern pieces are drafted using measurements of the shoulder, upper chest and underarm. The width is increased for gathers and the facing is “grown on” at the upper edge. See the example in the image above.

Next week, I’ll share a tutorial for how to draft the dress. We’ll be using what we learned in Project 001 about drafting gathers and elastic casings. Then, the following week we’ll get a little more mathy and look at formulas for calculating the finished bust measurement and the fabric requirements. I’m also curious about how to adjust the pattern for a fuller bust and I’d love to try a variation with ruffled straps for more of a nightgown style. Let me know what sounds interesting to you.

Happy mathing!

Beth

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