Hello all!

My latest project was entirely inspired by this dress that Keira Knightly wears in the film “Begin Again”. The main feature that I took from the dress was the horizontal stripes in the bodice and vertical stripes in the skirt. I then added a dolman sleeve, bust pleats and pockets to the equation.

I wanted to use a purple striped cotton gauze that was in my stash, but it was a bit see through, so I added a built in cami underneath. The skirt was underlined in the same fabric as the cami. The photo below was taken before the zip was put in the back, joining both layers together.

It was my first time drafting a dolman sleeve bodice and I laughed a lot when I saw how small my bodice pleats came out (most of the dart is absorbed into the sleeve.) No wonder the pleated bodices of the other dolman sleeve dresses I’ve made previous have turned out so baggy. Their pleats are at least double the size! I had a big debate about whether to have one normal sized pleats or two ridiculously tiny pleats, but I went for 2 in the end because I just liked it more visually, even though they are a bit of a non event.

I had a slight crisis about how much fullness was in the upper part of my bodice, but I was assured in the Foldline Facebook group that a little extra fullness is just the nature of the beast when it comes to dolman sleeves. When it came to construction I french seamed all of my gauze bodice seams for a clean finish. My french seams ended up being 1cm wide but next time I’d aim for 0.5cm which would be much more delicate. At first I used a silk organza bias binding to finish off the neckline but the neck was too tight so I just chopped it off and rolled hemmed the neckline instead.. I was worried that a rolled hem on a neckline wouldn’t be stable enough but I’m really pleased with how it turned out. In this photo you can also see a hint of the underbodice!

I’m glad that I took the time to put pockets in because I always regret it when I don’t!

The zip in the back of the dress goes up to where the underbodice stops. I then attached a button and a thread loop to the top of the neckline.

I used up pretty much every scrap of the fabric to make this dress and a was worried that the skirt wasn’t going to be full enough. Luckily I think it just about works! This is the perfect easy breezy summer dress for me, and it was great to experiment more with drafting different styles.

Thanks for reading!

Lauren xx