Pattern: Tara from Burdastyle, lengthened into a dress
Fabric: rayon batik from Waechter’s, 2.5 yards
Notes: Well, I can’t exactly recommend the instructions, but I really like the finished result! The Tara pattern is a top pattern, but I lengthened the bottom pieces by 10 inches in order to get a dress. The length on me is right above the knee (I did a machined baby hem to maintain the flow of the rayon.)
The instructions were just silly – they made very little sense to me, especially the instructions for sewing the tops to the front and for the elastic casing. Here is a tip for the casing – you should only have one line of sewing showing on the outside of the dress. If you have two, something is wrong. This is the first elastic casing I have made, and I made the elastic pretty tight, with the idea that it might help me to avoid any wardrobe malfunctions. It does – I can bend over in this dress without any mishap, which I was not expecting. The lowness of the neck doesn’t bother me, but I am small busted – I don’t have cleavage anyway!
I like the high back. BTW, notice my mistake in this photo – one of the back straps is sewn to the wrong part of the back. I fixed it, but I’m not retaking these photos! Sewing on the sleeves was a bit hard to figure out – I sewed them on twice! I recommend ditching the instructions once you have an outline of how the dress goes together, because I swear it made it worse! The tutorials over on grosgrain were helpful to get an idea of how it was supposed to look!
The pattern called for bias strips around the arms, but due to a cutting tragedy I just turned them under and sewed. It worked out fine, and honestly I might recommend doing that – it’s much easier than futzing with the bias.
The batik was lovely to work with, and it’s very cool and summery to wear. I’m not generally a big fan of the prints, but I really like this one. This is my July 4th outfit – we will be having a firework free day, as I just hate fireworks (loud noises make me extremely cranky… odd, I know!)
I think this pattern would also make a really nice nightgown, and I’m thinking of making one for that purpose. This is probably my lone “summer only” dress this year – I like versatility, but sometimes it’s just hot!
Green apples - Stitchywitch Creates 
Beautiful! I love the fabric. Batik, but subtle.
Lovely! You look fantastic!
Thanks for the tips. Methinks a Tara is in my future, too.
Lovely!
I have fabric aplenty to sew myself some things. I just need to get around to it!
Well, this is becoming a popular pattern. Saw it in Burda featured as a dress then as “frock by Friday” by Grosgrain in her blog. Looks very pretty and the idea of using is as a nightgown appeals to me more than a dress because for me it’s too revealing
Nice fabric too, blue it’s my favourite colour!
Jimena
Very lovely! The fabric looks wonderful with this pattern!
Agreed about the problematic instructions–blech! Thanks for mentioning that you made your elastic on the tight side. I’m just at the point of stitching down my elastic and hadn’t decided where I wanted it.
It looks beautiful on you!
summer only? pshaw. some warm leggings, tall boots, and a wooly sweater over it make for a marvelous transition into fall. or wear it over jeans for that hipster-hippie look.
I didn’t think I’d like the batik from the sample in an earlier post, but it looks great in this pattern! I’m really curious what kind of bra you can wear with this dress, since it has such a low dip in the neckline.
Very cute. I have seen all kinds of versions of this dress online, on blogs, and I have to say I get tempted more and more to try it out too. You look stunning in it!
Gorgeous dress and great color on you!
SO pretty!
So cute and perfect for summer.
Btw, I can’t comment on your blog from work (where I usually catch up on Google Reader) so I tend to catch up at home every couple of weeks, hence the marathon of comments. Sorry for them all coming at once. 🙂