Another Sewing Post - Making a Dungaree Dress

 In April, I purchased a lovely denim dungaree dress for £10.50 from my local charity shop. It was labelled as XL, and as there was no fitting room, I bought it and took it home, hoping that it would fit. I really liked it because it was a longer length than many dungaree dresses, which tend to be quite short and tent like.  This one was longer and a straighter fit, which I thought might be more flattering. 

However, when I got home and tried it on, it wasn't XL at all, it was more like a size 10/12. I got it on, but it was tight in all the wrong places. I was a bit disappointed, as I really liked it, so I hung onto it hoping that I might be able to fit into it better if I lost a bit of weight again and I'm still hoping that this might happen, but I'm not counting on it. Here's a picture of the original dress:

Anyway, as it was a pretty simple construction, I decided to see if I could make a larger version that fitted better. I had some black cotton fabric that was originally salvaged from the full skirt of a dress that I cut down to a shirt. There was quite a lot of it and just enough to try to make this dress.

I then proceeded to create a paper pattern from the original dungaree dress, adding an inch or three to each side of the front and back. I kind of just winged it if I'm honest. I then cut the front and back pieces and the front and back pockets out in the fabric and set them aside intending to eventually sew them together.

When at my sewing class, I realised that the machines there could be used to sew a double stitch that you see on most denim items, where two rows of stitches run parallel to one another. I'd never seen the double needle that you use to do this before, but my tutor had one, so I had a play around at class and then brought my pattern pieces in and over a couple of weeks I managed to make the larger version of the dungaree dress.

There were some tricky moments, as I only just had enough fabric to make the dress and had to piece together some leftover strips of fabric to make the straps. They turned out okay in the end and once the fastenings were attached, they looked great.

The double needle had it's challenges too as it isn't easy to sew around a corner, but I managed okay. The finish isn't perfect and there might be the odd wobbly line here and there, but as I stitched using black cotton on black fabric, the mistakes aren't so noticable and most of them are on the back, which I don't actually see whilst wearing it.

Luckily, LB had some silver coloured jean buttons that she'd bought to mend a pair of dungarees she has and she let me use a couple of them to add to my dress. They are a different colour from the remainder of the fastenings, which are blackish, but I may paint them to make them blend a bit more or even just go with them as they are. This dress is really only for casual use, so I'm not bothered about the buttons being a different colour.

Anyway, here's a picture of the finished dress:

It looks a bit shapeless in the photo, but looks better on and fits me a lot better than the original with room to spare. I'm looking forward to wearing it over the summer and might even make another one in a different fabric i.e. a lightweight denim like the original dress or a camoflage/animal print denim if I can find one.

I'm very happy with it, but now need to see if it stands up to the wear and tear of actually wearing it. Wish me luck.