Floral Wren Dress

Several months ago I bought this rayon jersey from Joann fabrics on a impulse buy. I have basically no self control when it comes to buying fabric, especially not since I started my new job this year and am finally earning an adult salary (woo!). All that to say, when I see a pretty fabric, I have a hell of a time saying no. Floral is a bit outside my comfort zone, but I love the colors and the larger scale flowers.

I decided to sew up another Wren dress. You can see the first one (also sewn up in a rayon jersey from Joann) here. I love the crossover on the bodice, and wanted to give this pattern another try now that I’m more comfortable with my coverstitch machine. Bonus: the #sewtogetherforsummer challenge is Wrap dresses, so this was perfect timing! I also added a half circle skirt instead of the gathered or gored skirts in the pattern. Generally, I hate gathering anything, plus I love the look of a half circle skirt.

When doing the math for this, I made an absurd, rookie mistake and make the waist measurement half the size I needed. I’m not going to do the “I’m not good at math” thing, because I have this personal pet peeve about people just deciding they’re permanently and fundamentally bad at something. (Seriously, the human brain is AMAZING and can learn anything if you put in the effort. Even math). Suffice to say, generally I’m pretty math proficient, but we all have our moments, you know?

Anyway, back to fixing my math fail. Since the waist was teeny tiny, I had to cut away a bit from the top. That made me lose some overall length and I worried that it would end up too short. Turns out the length is perfect as is. I usually like my skirts around knee length (my boyfriend calls me a nun for this preference) and am trying to branch out into shorter skirt lengths. I think there’s something really flattering about the above the knee length, and it’s good for me to get comfortable with new silhouettes. Especially because I actually really like a shorter skirt, but I forget that I do.

This fabric is pretty shifty to sew, and I stabilized it with tissue when doing the cover stitching. That worked out really well and I can definitely see the improvement from my last Wren. I decided not to hem it, largely because I didn’t want to mess with the drape. Plus it’s a knit, and hemming is my least favorite part anyway.

This was the perfect Easter dress and I love how springy it feels. I also like wearing this with a chambray button up tied up at the waist for a more casual look. It’s a little short for work (there’s the nun talking) but I think I’ll wear it a lot on the weekends when the weather warms. We’ve already had some mid 70s and 80s days in the Bay Area and I’m so ready for more!

This is also my first entry in the Sew Together For Summer challenge. See more details about the challenge here. I’m all about the Wrap dress recently, it’s like they read my mind! Are you participating in the challenge and sewing a wrap dress? Have you made the Wren yet?