Who’s in the mood for a no-pattern free pattern?

Over on the By Hand London website – there is a great blog post about some draft-it-yourself sewing projects.

One of which is this sleeved shirred dress!

Instructions for making this shirred dress are available for free as a permanent story on the By Hand London instagram page.

This dress kind of represents the magic of sewing. It’s just a bunch of rectangles.

But somehow, us sewists can make magic with it.

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Well, with a little help from some shirring elastic too!

One of my favourite all-time makes is a the summer sleeveless shirred dress that I made last year. That post contains all kinds of tips and suggestions for first-time shirring so if you want to learn more about the sewing process of making the garment – that post could be useful!

So when I stumbled upon some of this gorgeous Atelier Brunette double-sided gingham double gauze on sale, I was very pleased to realise that I had enough fabric to use the By Hand London tutorial to make a version with sleeves this time.

The tutorial for the By Hand London shirred dress couldn’t be simpler. There is no seam at the waist, so it is literally just a large rectangle with the bodice part shirred and then it goes down seamlessly into the skirt.

I have added an extra ruffle as a bottom layer to my version. As well as creating a cuff at the sleeve to make the most of the double-sided features of the fabric.

The sleeves are a bit unusual. They are just rectangles (I added some cuffs on mine to show off the contrasting fabric) which are secured over the shoulder with elastic. Then they’re simply attached at the under arm.

In all honesty, it’s not the most comfortable sleeve and I haven’t quite gotten the right ratio of elastic as it can slip off the shoulder sometimes.

But I still love the overall look enough to make it work! I feel like a walking summer picnic in this dress.

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