How to be your own Sewist? #11 Shift Dress

What makes shift dresses my favourite is the comfortable fit & the versatility in styling it. When worn as is, it gives a perfect casual look & when accessorized a little, it becomes ideal for a brunch gathering.
For this post I chose to make a classic one, the Wiksten Shift Dress.
There are so many versions of this dress to inspire you. The simple silhouette always brings out the beauty of the fabric. You can see all the version of this dress here.

The Fabric

If you have been following my sewing journey, you may already know how much I love using Ikat fabric. In fact, for beginning this journey with Fabriclore, I chose Ikat & made out my first ever Ashton top. When I first saw this gorgeous teal I knew I needed to make something that would bring out the beauty of this fabric.
This mercerized ikat fabric has a certain sheen to the fabric that you do not see in other ikat fabrics. This sheen makes the garment feel more dressy than other ikat fabrics. And this teal shade is stunning.
The fabric washes and irons well making it a lovely fabric to sew with. I highly recommend this for any apparel.

The Pattern

This gorgeous dress is designed by Shop Wiksten. This is a small independent pattern company that has some of the most comfy patterns. This is one of my favorite. The other pattern is their Haori style unfoldig jacket, which I have made many versions. Unfortunately, they do not sell this pattern any longer, but you may find some other pretty ones.
This pattern has a lot of ease!! I therefore decided to size down and make a size 2. I also adjusted the length of the pattern by shortening the length by 2”.
This dress sews up very fast!!! There are very few patter pieces and they come together very fast.

Sewing up the dress

Once all pieces of fabric were cut, I followed most of the instructions except I chose to have an inner and an outer yoke to the dress which would give it a much cleaner finish on the inside of the garment. To do this, you will have to cut out 2 pieces of the yoke, instead of 1.

What I did differently

1. I cut out 2 pieces of the yoke
2. I sandwiched the gathered backpiece between the 2 yoke pieces and sewed them together. Now I have an inner yoke and an outer yoke.
3. Now I sewed the front to the outer yoke with right sides facing at the shoulder seams (be careful if you don’t have an obvious right and wrong side of the fabric).
4. I used the burrito method to completely enclose the yokes. Check out a video of the burrito method here.
5. That’s it! After this step, I followed all instructions as per the pattern.

Techniques you will learn

This is a great beginner friendly pattern. If you choose to make this dress, you will

1. Learn to sew gathers
2. Learn to sew a waist belt
3. Learn to attach patch pockets (I chose to not add pockets to this dress)

And there you have it! A perfect shift dress to pair up with your peppy mood. 

Author: Swetha Mohan