Kimono Style Dress

I was very excited to get a Japanese Pattern Book in the mail and figure out how to create my own pattern from the diagrams as well as grade the size to fit. (still working on that)

Kimono Style Dress

I made some deviations along the way since I had only so much fabric in my stash

which ended up being a good thing, I think.

detail of neckline facing

I used a gray camouflage-like cotton print for the basic dress and a weird silver metallic fishnet fabric for the see-thru overlay they suggested for the front and back panels. I never thought I would ever use that silver stuff, but it actually made the boring gray camo cloth look interesting. But...it was also scratchy at the inside neckline so I made a facing from some silky jersey fabric in an op-art B&W print. I had just enough of this scrap to cover it.

detail of sleeve lining

Another alteration with the sleeves, they were kinda wide at the end and I thought they needed some lining, but I didn't have enough of any one fabric to do so, so...I just went with different B&W and/or gray jersey scraps for each sleeve - a camo version here and a leopard-esque one for the other.

detail of hem as piping

And finally, not enough fabric left for a hem, so I added a 1+ inch strip of another B&W jersey print to the bottom and sewed it on like piping. In fact, I sewed all the jersey pieces as if they were piping - so a bit of the fabric shows on the right side of the dress, if you get my drift...

See Project Minima for the second version of Kimono Style Dress using my old flannel sheets!