Are you familiar with the concept of synergy? It’s the interaction of two or more things, coming together to make something greater than the sum of their parts.
That was sort of where I was going when I added pockets to my Extra-Sharp Pencil Skirt in my last blog post. It’s also very much what I think I achieved with this combination of the Belgravia Knit Dress, the Metro T-shirt and double gauze jersey fabric.
I mean, each of those parts is sounding pretty awesome on its own, right? Can they combine to make something even better? I think so!
I loved the Belgravia Knit Dress straight out of the packet when I first sewed it, and my love for the Metro T-shirt is well documented. I saw another sewist on Pattern Review who put a rounded neckline and fuller skirt on the Belgravia dress and I knew I wanted to try that too.
When I then discovered double gauze jersey (I feel I need to keep typing those three words just to prove it really exists!), I was sold on the idea of this perfect fall/winter dress.
Changing the neckline and flaring the skirt
It was easy to do, and I made all my pattern changes directly on the fabric as I cut the dress out.
I already knew from my first Belgravia dress that I wanted to add an inch of torso length. I also wanted to eliminate the center-front seam. That seam is sewed at a 3/8″ allowance, so I simply placed my pattern 3/8” over the fold line of the fabric.
Because I put the bodice on the grainline of the fabric instead of on a bias angle, you can see above that the ties didn’t quite fit. I folded that pattern tissue back, out of the way, by about 3” and cut the ties as long as the fabric fold line would allow. When I went to cut my ties, I simply added 3” to the length of the view B ties.
I laid my Metro T-shirt front bodice tracing over the top and lined the center front up on my fold line. You can see that the shoulder width is slightly different at the neckline. As knit fabrics are forgiving, I didn’t worry about that. I cut the front bodice following the Metro neckline until I hit the Belgravia shoulder, and then continued cutting out the Belgravia bodice.
I eliminated the center seam on the back bodice as well by moving the pattern piece 3/8″ over the fold line. You can see that the back necklines of the Belgravia and the Metro are pretty similar, so I just cut the Belgravia back neckline.
To achieve the fuller skirt, I used the split and spread technique that we’ve covered recently. I also cut both front and back skirt pieces on the fold.
I constructed the dress following the Belgravia instructions. I jumped into them midway as there were no longer any center seams to close. I finished the neckline with the Metro T-shirt neckband piece. It all came together very quickly and easily, and it is just as easy to wear. I love it!