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Today I’m sharing two dresses which represent new territory for me.

I’ve often heard of sewists copying or “rubbing off” RTW clothing from their own wardrobes, but it’s not something I’ve tried much myself. I think I tried it once about 5 years ago and failed spectacularly.

Here, I’ve given it a go again.

Why, you may ask?

Well, for the same reason I make lots of sewing decisions.

Because the f*%kin’ fabulous fabric demanded it.

Pleated geometric print dress

The manner in which I came across this pleated geometric bright-coloured fabric basically represents a master class in effective marketing.

It was featured in a weekly marketing email from The Fabric Sales in Belgium. I opened it up over my morning cup of tea. I saw it and instantly decided my life would be incomplete if I did not purchase it. I clicked the link and owned it within 2 minutes or so.

Yes, this is exactly why I subscribe to very few marketing emails from fabric stores.

But, can you really blame me? This fabric definitely is a little bit out of the ordinary!

I had a RTW dress which was also made out of pleated fabric, so I used that dress to create bodice and sleeve pieces for my pleated fabric.

In all honesty, as I am a lazy sewist and do not trust my ability to complete tasks requiring patience, I would probably have preferred to purchase a similar pattern but couldn’t really find anything that fit the bill. Many wrap bodices I already owned had grown-on sleeves, which would not work with this pleated fabric. The Orchid Midi Dress was probably the closest thing I found in my searching.

But as I didn’t own that pattern already, I decided to try to put something together that resembled a RTW dress I owned – one which is I like a lot. I didn’t do any special research before embarking on this project. I took the dress out of my cupboard and tried to figure out the best way to manipulate it so that I could trace approximately around the edges. Then I trued up the various seams.

I had some distant recollections of a Love to Sew podcast episode which covered this topic, so feel free to start there if you are actually searching for more information on how to the whole rubbing off RTW thing.

Then, since I had a brand new never-before-tried rubbed off pattern on my hands, together with a very special fabric, I of course made a muslin.

Nah, just kidding!! That’s what a good sewist would have done.

Me, I strongly considered it. I even went so far as to go through my cupboards to see if I had any fabric appropriate for making a muslin.

And then I decided, “ah, f*#k it” and just plunged straight in without a muslin.

Yeah, I know, I’m living my best life.

Dangerous hard-core sewing, with a cup of tea in hand.

Cutting out my pattern pieces in this pleated fabric was a bit of a herculean feat , as I wanted to cut out all my pattern pieces with the pleats fully closed. This way, on the body, they would open up, creating the movement and ease required. So before cutting, I had to painstakingly close all the pleats and only then cut out the pieces.

I then stitched the pleats closed within the seam allowance of the cut pieces.

I finished the neckline with a facing and I have used shirring at the waist and sleeve.

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This was my second attempt at shirring and I am pleased to report that it felt much easier than the first time around.

This is the kind of fabric that is so fun and unique that I feel that anything made out of it would look good.

But, with full recognition that the star of the show is the fabric itself, I am extremely chuffed with how this dress has turned out! And, the muslin-free approach has worked out fine on this occasion, I experienced no major issues putting this together. Apart from slightly lowering the armscye for comfort, it all just kind of worked!

Dictated by the fabric

Which brings me to yet another bright colourful dress dictated by the fabric itself.

I recently read The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki which paints a portrait of books being able to propel themselves into our lives. I feel like this fabric has done the same.

I bought it a while ago from Stragier, with the intention that it would become a shirt or top (I only had 1.5 metres). As I was putting something into my fabric stash shelf on a sunny day, this fabric, which I had no intention of sewing imminently, tumbled into my arms and I could almost hear it whispering in hope “sew me, sew me”.

And so I decided I could sew just one more summer dress this year.

As I had recently made the pleated dress, I decided to use the same RTW wrap bodice above as my starting point.

During the process of making the above pleated dress, I had equally liked how it looked sleeveless and I’d been rather undecided about whether to add the sleeves or not.

So this new dress seemed like it was my opportunity to see what a brightly coloured sleeveless dress would look like.

Now the RTW dress that I rubbed the bodice pattern from was pleated, so I found that the pattern did behave quite differently when I cut it from non-pleated fabric. My bodice in this fabric was much roomier. I had to add in a bust dart for shape (I did this going from the underarm, for the sole reason that I had already sewn my side seam, so this was the best way to do so without any unpicking). In this fabric, the wrap bodice also gaped much more than the above pleated version, so I have sewn up the overlap at the bodice for security and decency.

For the skirt in this version, its shape was dictated by my desire to create the longest and widest skirt I could with my available fabric.

I felt as though my smooth sailing with shirring from the previous dress might run out at any moment, so I decided with this dress to achieve waist shaping through an elastic channel, rather than shirring.

I’ve also added pockets, a split hem and the armhole is bias bound.

While the pleated dress came together with surprising ease, this was more of a “trial and error dress”, characterised with plenty of making it up as I went along. This time around did kind of re-enforce my general position that it seems to me to be much easier to just use pre-existing patterns than to kind of try to wing it on my own.

But I am again very pleased with the result.

This dress is definitely a worthy final dress of summer and this print is, yet again, rather lovely. I feel like a walking gelato bar when I wear this…

What about you, have you ever tried re-creating RTW garments from your own wardrobe? How has it gone?