New Alabama Chanin Dress

I received the latest Alabama Chanin book " Alabama Studio Sewing Patterns" in early April. I was a little frustrated at having to print out the patterns myself.  I have copies of the patterns from earlier books, but I really wanted the A-line dress from the most recent book. I finally took the CD to Kinkos and had them print out the A-line Dress, the Coat, a circle stencil and the new leaf stencil. It cost about $40 for the 4 large printouts. One of the frustrating thing about multiply sizes on one sheet is that sometimes you forget what line you are following. I think I saw this tip in a Craftsy video...trace the size you want to cut out in a specific color. I decided that red was the easiest since I had a large red sharpie handy. I then put the pattern paper under the pattern and use the tracing wheel. The nice thing about the tracing wheel is it leaves a line of dots on the pattern paper...if you are lucky the color you used to trace your size will bleed through a little making the lines easier to follow. Once you have the pattern for your size cut out you can put the pattern away till you need a different size. 

I cut our a large dress because the jersey fabric I used was very stretchy. I think it had spandex in the material mix. That was nice because it will keep it's shape longer, where as 100% cotton jersey will stretch out too much sometimes. Anyway I added pockets to this dress and I'm kind of happy with the results. I cheated on this project because I didn't want to put a lot of time into the dress, so I serged the dress. I hand stitch the bias tape on the neck and arms. I will make this dress again. I also want to try some of the new tips that are given in the latest book. Things such as color blocking and pockets. These dresses are so easy to make and the most comfortable pieces of clothing I have in my wardrobe. I really want to try to make the coat next. I think a heavy jersey such as a sweatshirt material will make a fun short coat, it will keep me warm on chilly evenings but look better than a hoodie. I can also do some nice details on the coat to dress it up a bit.