Summer Sewing: Cotton Dresses to Wear at Home

A Thread of Love

by Eduard Niczky (German 1850-1919)

(Please note: You can move your cursor or finger over the scripture citations for a pop-up window of the complete verse.)

Last summer I posted a picture of this soft cotton print from the Wal-Mart fabric department.( By the way, Wal-Mart is re-establishing the fabric department in some stores country-wide.)  Since then, several ladies have written to tell me that they had purchased some of it, and included photographs of the finished garments.

  I also shared how to make a planning page with a drawing and notes about the garment you are going to make. Ladies have also been sending me these, to show. The one you see below was sent by a lady who also uses New Look pattern 6352 , adding a flutter sleeve and a ruffle at the hem. This is great for summer because it is loose and cool. This dress has no buttons or zipper but you could add a side or back zipper.

Another friend sent me this picture of a skirt and blouse made from the same fabric,

and this is what I have done with the same print: very similar to my e-friend's sketch at the beginning of the post, only I chose long sleeves. The dress is not that long; the dress form has very short legs! This pattern is very easy, but for some people may be too big, so trying making it a size smaller. Also, the neckline will need to be raised, and the shoulders will have to have additional inches added at the neckline.

The neckline fits better than it looks on the dressform.

The reason I use this pattern is that it is easy for the homemaker that has so much to do, and she can get it finished in a day.  After I cut out a dress, I take the fabric pieces I just cut out, and lay them on another piece of folded fabric and cut out another dress. Using the pre-cut dress as a pattern is much easier, as it needs no pins or weights to hold it down, so I always have a dress cut out that will be used for a pattern. This I do with other patterns and styles, also, if I like the way the dress turned out.

I will address a question that comes to my email sometimes about my sewing: What do you do with all the clothes and crafts you make?

If you sew with cotton, you know how wonderful it is to wear, and you tend to wear the clothes to death. Every last wear is squeezed out of these garments until it cannot be worn again, and then it is cut down into an apron. If you use the line to dry the garment, you might take something that seems like it has absolutely no wear left in it, hang it to dry, and then discover that the sun and wind added some more starch and body to the cloth, and you can get a few more wearings from it.

Homemaking being as active as it is, the cotton dresses will receive a lot of wear and tear, so I do not expect them to last for years. However, some of the ones that I made for out-of-the-house have lasted 15 to 20 years.

Since these dresses are not expensive and are made of cotton fabrics, they do not hang in the closet for years or go unworn, and therefore, are used up faster than other types of clothing. If it looks like my blog is full of dresses and you wonder how in the world I could wear them all, remember I dress this way at home daily, and I do not wear the same dress every day. I have at least 7 dresses so I can rotate them.  My newer dress just off the sewing machine will be worn to church (about 4 of them) and then as the older dresses wear out, I will use the newer ones to wear to Ladies Bible Class, Wednesday evening Bible study, or Sunday night church.  Eventually I will have several dresses to wear during the week, with newer ones to wear to other occasions outside of the home.  

The pillows, blankets, and other crafts get used up also. My family lives in our house and everything gets some pretty hard wear-and-tear, and I am not afraid to use the pretty ruffled pillows, because if they wear out, it is always exciting to make something else.     Smaller items get put in a basket by the front door to give away to guests or to take to someone I visit, or to be used as a gift when it is needed.

Hand sewn cotton blouses and skirts feel MUCH different than factory clothing. For one thing, they are breathable and do not cling as much, making them much more comfortable. Yes, you can get 100% cotton knit tops and you can get cotton skirts in stores, but it is treated with some different product, which will make it feel much different, even after it is washed, than the hand made cotton clothing.

Making your own clothes, or having a dressmaker, gives you a better fit and more control over the styles, the length or the color choice.  

My favorite fabrics are by David Textiles from Texas, which are stocked by Walmart. The Hawaiian dress in one of the previous posts is a David fabric.  

To plan your sewing, try making a list of things you do and places you go, and then sketching the type of clothing you need to wear. Such a list might look something like this:

Worship Service -  solid color dress and short jacket --make about 4 of them, and use them later when they are wearing out, for your daily wear.

Daily Wear At Home - 7 calico prints of various colors, with sleeves, and one white short jacket to wear over them when you have to go away from home.

Ladies Bible Study - several versions of a skirt and casual blouse (4 or 5 of them to rotate in wear)

Midweek Bible study - a casual dress (make about 4 of these to rotate in wear)

Special Occasions - one black dress with jacket and one white skirt and top, or more formal.

Away from home: vacations, beach, sight seeing, touring, and anything else: it is fun to choose fabrics to go with the activity you are anticipating, or with the scenes or climate.  If you are a "mood" dresser like I am, think of the colors you will see wherever you go, and choose your fabric accordingly.

I am looking forward to taking some time to demonstrate on this blog how to make this dress, with easy instructions. 

One good reason to make cotton dresses for the home is that they are a woven, natural fabric, which wear thinner as they are washed and hung out, and they will not hang in the closet for years and years, like some of the clothing made from oil and plastic products.  Cottons do not cling to body odor as badly as other fabrics, and if they are sewn by someone, rather than store-bought, they have a more refreshing feeling next to the skin.

Some manufacturers have been able to duplicate this in cotton garments. It is a matter of finding them to purchase. A knit cotton will not be as nice as a woven cotton, and a rayon will not be as comfortable as a cotton, even though it is a derivative of cotton.