Summer dress from inspiration Magazine

Dear Readers,

The series of sewing instructions and patterns from our Magazin inspiration! We now move on to a summer dress – perfect for the hot days ahead of us.

The instructions for the dress appeared in inspiration issue 50 from 2011. For the anniversary edition of our magazine, we sought out five items from previous editions and subtly tweaked their designs to modernize them to match current trends. Under the motto “from the old comes the new”, the patterns were introduced on some extra pages in the magazine.

The original version of this summer dress was a beach dress, published in issue 23 from 2002, along with a swimsuit under the heading “Summer, Sunshine, and Joie de Vivre”:

Instead of the striped jersey fabric that was used originally, in 2011 we opted for a border print fabric and gave the dress a more form-fitting design to make it perfect not only for the beach, but also around town.

Download the summer dress pattern

As with the baby dress, autumn shirt, and winter vest, we have made the summer dress pattern available for free download in A4 format.

Download the summer dress pattern

After printing it out, glue the sheets together in 4 rows of 4 pages, as shown in the illustration on page 1 of the PDF. When printing, make sure that the pages are printing in the original size (no scaling or automatic adjustment to fit the pages).

As a precaution, measure the test square, which is also located on the first page. The edges should be exactly 10 cm long.

Sewing instructions for the summer dress

Size 36 – 44

Materials

1,2 – 1,4 m border fabric, at least 150 cm wide
1,2 – 1,4 m mesh netting as lining, 140 cm wide
0,5 m elastic, approximately 1 cm wide (Gold-Zack)
Invisible zipper, length 30 – 35 cm
Prym Turner Set for the strap
Sewing machine and overlocker

Cutting the fabric and the lining

2 x upper front piece (seam allowance on the top edge of the shell fabric should be 2.5 cm!)
1 x front skirt piece on the fold
1 x back piece on the fold
1 x strap approx. 145 cm long, finished width 1 cm

Instructions

Close the front central seam up to the slit marks. Gather the front upper pieces (shell fabric and lining) at the bottom edge and together, sew them to the front skirt piece.
Close the dart on the back piece. Close the side seams of the fabric and lining separately, leaving a slip open on the left side of the body for the zipper.
Stitch and turn over the top edges of the lining and the fabric on the front arm hole and the back piece and along the front center seam (slit). Turn the lining inwards. Cut the elastic approximately 5 cm shorter than the measured length of the top edge of the back piece. Topstitch the edge of the back upper piece about 1.5 cm from the edge. Thread in the elastic above the stitch line. Fix the length into the seam allowances. Edgestitch the turned edges.
Fold the top edges of the front piece inwards and top stitch them. Place the strap lengthwise, right side to right side, and sew it together. Turn the strap using the Prym Turner Set and thread it in.
Turn over the skirt hems, adjusting and topstitching the length of the underskirt accordingly.

This is how the summer dress looked at our photo shoot in the summer of 2011:

We hope you have lots of fun making it and hopefully many sunny days to get to wear your dress! If you like the dress, why not show to the Community ? I would be delighted to see them!

Best wishes,

Claudia Giesser