Workwear Kielo — Victoria Martinez

Suuuuper pleased with this dress! Literally the only thing I'm not jazzed about is I didn't consider breastfeeding-friendliness for this project, so it's not going to get as much wear as it should over the next while. But eventually it will, and that has its own rewards. And I love it enough that I've worn it twice in the last month despite having to hike it up all the way to pump...

This Kielo wrap dress was my last project before going back to work, but of course I didn't really do any sewing on it until I was in fact back to work. Cutting and editing the pattern was quite enough of a project with a baby under foot for my last few days, and I didn't want to miss out on baby time as it was. Then again, the actual sewing was a snap, really, and was nice to do in the evenings after baby went to sleep.

To make this Kielo workwear-friendly, I added the sleeves and shortened to a tea length. Just because the pattern pieces are so large and I didn't want to have to entirely reprint if I ever make this again (I did however #cutthatshitout and tape on the sleeve shape (for easy removal!) in my size, but that's fine because it fits perfectly ^_^), that was a bit of a project. I also lost both my measuring tapes somehow, and spent most of my last potential real sewing day searching for one of them... Anyway, to shorten the dress I measured shoulder to desired length, added a full inch an a half of just-in-case room, moved the slit up an eyeball amount, measured a comfortable finished calf size, and redrew the angle from ties to bottom. Easy, but time consuming, mostly because of the size of the pattern pieces.

I used a lovely slinky bamboo jersey from Carden Fabrics (man, I knew them so briefly but I loved them so much!). I have mixed feelings about bamboo (even organic, like this one), as an ethical choice for fabric, but mixed means... that I bought it this time. And will be using all the scraps for tights, probably. I didn't stabilize the shoulder seams, since I didn't fully understand the utility of doing so since most of my knit sewing has been baby stuff and in cotton lycra, so I hope that doesn't come back to haunt me. Oh well, it's a perfect dress right now.

byyyyyyyye (i feel like i should have made this slit longer?)

The final edit was I did cuffs to finish the sleeves, as they were a touch short, and a band for the neckline rather than binding, since that's what I'm used to. Cut both at 90% of their intended homes' size and the results fit just nicely.

This was my first slit, and I found the instructions from Named were pretty thin (as they do) so I used By Hand London and a few other blogs to help me out (I like to read EVERYTHING I can when I try a new thing).

Also.... I need to redo the hem. I was running out of matching thread and did a regular straight stitch on the bottom rather than the triple stitch or double needle... it was the right call in that my thread ran out as I hit the backstitch, but the wrong one in that the hem is popping all over and I have not sat down to fix it. Soon, I keep telling myself.

Last note: Matthew loves this tied to the back as well, which I like for the times I want to throw a long cardi over and have the front not be too busy. No photos tho ^_^

Pattern: Kielo Wrap Dress w/ free sleeves by Named Patterns
Size: 40
Fabric: Bamboo jersey from Carden Fabrics
If there is a next time: It would be fun to do a sleeveless version in full length à la original pattern instructions. I suspect my mum wants one. Remember to stabilize shoulder seams on something slinky knit like this. Properly hem the bottom the first time out, no matter how close you are to running out of thread, because you will put off fixing it forever, but not finishing it will motivate you to go buy the right thread, probably.