I’m very happy to share my latest creation, a knit wrap dress made from Vogue 8379! This might be my favorite sewing project yet. I wore it straight away and the fabric is sooooooo comfy.

It came just in time too; I hadn’t completed anything since the end of summer’s First Impressions Dress. Yikes!!

This dress is called “The October Issue” because I was cutting out the pieces while watching the Vogue documentary, The September Issue. In October. Yeah, heavy stuff coming to you live from Sewin’ in the Rain Productions. I had wanted to photograph the dress outside, but tomorrow’s forecast and the next few hurricaney days sure ain’t lookin’ pretty. As such, the photo quality falls short of stellar.

I picked up this (polyester/blend?) knit fabric over the summer, the first fabric purchase of 2012 for me (I’ve been good otherwise!). Since I don’t have many knits, adding to my stash isn’t as bad as when I buy more and more cottons.

At $3 a yard and $1.99 for the pattern during one of those online super sales, this is my most cost effective outfit to date! That doesn’t happen often for me since I tend to oooo and ahhh the slightly more pricey fabrics and patterns.

Because the fabric is a tad more stretchy than the fabric guide recommends on the pattern envelope, I went down a size to compensate (size 8, to be exact). It worked out perfectly, and I didn’t make any adjustments.

You know what I figured? I have a $10 RTW wrap dress that I bought about 4 years ago and it fits just fine. My sister, who has different measurements than I do, also fits in it just fine. So why all the fuss for wrap dress + knit? Exactly.

I ended up making view A, except I used the view B sleeve pattern for a 1/2 length sleeve. Using my RTW wrap dress as a guide, I left off the sleeve’s band pieces and the back & front facing pieces at the bodice. The skirt front pieces come with a self-facing, but I did away with that too. My RTW dress just has the raw edges folded over once (with a serged finish) and topstitching 1/4″ from the edge, and that’s what I did here (and at the sleeve and skirt hems).

As I mentioned in my progress report post, I’ve seen versions of V8379 online where the fullness is taken out of the skirt. I ended up keeping the fullness in, partly because I thought it would look nice and partly because I just didn’t have the energy to adjust the pattern pieces. So, here you have it – I love the fullness! It’s so fun to twirl with all that extra fabric (which, you know, I do all the time).

Earlier this year my sister asked for a wrap dress for her birthday, so that’ll finally get done. Actually, I’m going to make this dress in the looks purple in person but blue on camera fabric for both of us – we’ll be dress twins! I don’t yet feel comfortable making clothes for other people, but a knit wrap dress for someone who fits a size I would wear should be easy enough. :-D

I planned on working on my pencil skirt next, but I still need lining and with the oncoming Hurricane Sandy I won’t be able to get to the Garment District anytime soon! And that’s why V8379 is so awesome. Just grab some knit fabric and sew away. (And if you don’t have a serger, never fear, this pattern comes with instructions for a regular sewing machine).

I predict this will be my go-to pattern in the future – a knit wrap skirt from the skirt pieces and other variations are just some ideas floating through my head. My mission is to see the possibility in my existing pattern stash because, at a certain point, I feel like I’m shelling out cash for similar patterns when that doesn’t need to be the case. We shall see!