After a month and a half long health and wedding related hiatus I am finally getting back into the swing of things and jumping right into June’s Sew My Style projects with not one but two variations of the Quincy Dress from Jennifer Lauren Handmade!
I am normally a stretch fabric only person but with the June SMS focus being woven dresses, the Quincy dress pushed me just outside of my normal sewing comfort zone. When the pattern schedule was released I was instantly nervous. Turns out I didn’t need to be however when it came to the Quincy dress!
The Quincy dress was my first ever make from a Jennifer Lauren Handmade pattern and was a really enjoyable sew! It is a fairly relaxed fit dress with positive ease throughout, a draw string waist, button front bodice, back yoke, and large pockets on the skirt.
The dress is a surprisingly quick sew and I assumed it would be easy to fit considering it is meant to be loose so I jumped right into my pretty fabric (the green leaf print) before making a true muslin which ended up coming back to haunt me.
I ended up needing quite a few fit edits on my first dress including shortening the bodice, lowering the neckline, shortening the shoulders, a full bust adjustment, a sway back adjustment, and shortening the skirt. Luckily I sewed the dress together before finishing any of my seams so it only took about an hour and a half to rip the whole thing apart, do all of the needed adjustments, and resew it back together.
Construction wise this dress is fairly straight forward and the instructions are very clearly written. the only slightly fiddly part is sewing the enclosed shoulder seams but even that really isn’t hard, just takes a second to comprehend.
I followed the instructions pretty spot on for both of my dresses (which is a super rare feat for me lol!) except for one thing… On both of my variations I ended up actually skipping adding button holes to the bodice and instead just stitched the buttons on right through both layers because I am lazy and there was enough ease that I can just slip the dresses on over my head.
Over all I would definitely recommend this pattern to anyone else who has a fear of sewing woven fabrics. The simple design, clear instructions, and built in cup sizes make it a great pattern for anyone wanting to get their feet wet with woven patterns!
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