Creative Needle and Threads: The Ishi Dress - A sweet shift dress by Straight Grain Patterns

Sunday, May 31, 2015

The Ishi Dress - A sweet shift dress by Straight Grain Patterns

The Ishi dress is a the new super cute dress pattern designed by An of Straight Grain. It comes in sizes 1 to 10 years, in English and Dutch. This is the first time I use one of her patterns and I'm in love with her professionally drafted pattern, graphics and instructions. I found this pattern easy to follow, with clear illustrations and wording.

This pattern yields a professional looking garment, as you can see in the photos. :)

The Ishi dress is a shift style dress with a comfortable fit. The pattern comes with different versions that you can choose from, including short/long sleeve and straight/slanted pockets. I personally liked how the slanted pockets looked and chose to use that version. I also made them with short sleeve, since summer time is around the corner.

This pattern is so fun, because it lets you experiment with different fabric combinations.

For the first dress, I chose all quilting cotton fabric in pastel shades. I'm just in love with pastel colors lately! My favorite fabric from this combination is the ones with the clouds. It just screams DREAMY to me!

For my second dress, I chose a gorgeous grey belgian linen a some guatemalan ikat fabric, to add a pop of color to the garment. For this dress I stepped a little bit out of my comfort zone, because I usually work with more colors, but I love the end result. When I was cutting the pockets, I had a little remnant left and I thought it would be fun to add a little embellishment to the front of the dress, so I added the triangle with a zig-zag stitch around the outer edges.

I also added some piping where the front-sides-back pieces come together, to highlight the shape and construction a little more. I really like how this dress is designed and didn't want the lines to get lost if I only used gray. Anyway, I think the piping added a great touch to the dress!

Finally, I added an exposed zipper in the back, just to give it a different touch. The pattern instructions are for installing an invisible zipper, which I really like, but I didn't have an invisible zipper when I was sewing the dress. That is why I decided that it would be fun to add an exposed zipper .

If you don't like installing zippers, this pattern also includes instructions on how to add a button placket!

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