Alder Shirtdress by Grainline Studio

Back in October last year, I impulsively bought two lots of linen from Mood Fabrics in New York. Who could resist? That shop is enormous and no Australian fabric shop even comes close! I used one lot of linen to make my Skipper Tunic by Papercut Patterns, but I was stuck on what to do with this green linen. Summer quickly gave way to autumn and floaty linen dresses were pushed aside in my wardrobe. It wasn't until I booked a trip to Hong Kong and Malaysia that I decided it was time to make something that I could wear while on holiday. After trawling through patterns, I finally chose the Alder Shirtdress by Grainline Studio and it's turned this green linen into the perfect dress for hot summer days. 

While it may look like a complicated dress with its collar and gathered skirt, it was a breeze to make. The instructions started with making the button binding. Unfortunately after joining the side seams of the dress, I realised it was too big. It turned out that I had forgotten to cut the button edge of the front pieces when tracing the pattern, meaning the front pieces were a couple of centimetres too large, so I ended up having to unpick and re-do the button binding. Thankfully this step was fairly straight forward, so it wasn't too much of a set-back. 

I then moved on to the front darts and pockets, which were nice and simple, just the way I like them! There's a piece of facing on the back yoke, which is also easy to sew. Once this was complete, I attached the front and back and started to see the dress coming together. All of the steps are quite simple, so it doesn't take too long before you're half way through!

Next came gathering the skirt. I love how this dress combines a gathered skirt with a buttoned shirt dress - perfect for my body type and it gives the dress a unique look. I'm yet to come across a dress just like this one in mainstream shops. Once the gathered skirt was attached to the top half, I was able to try the dress on and see how it looked. I was really happy with the fit, so thankfully no unpicking was required. 

The collar was easier to make than I had thought, although I did find that the collar stand didn't end up reaching right to the inside edge of the button bands - this may be due to the alterations I made. Either way, it sits fine so I didn't bother cutting a new collar stand. The heavy linen that I used made the collar sit very nicely and I had no problem getting the edges nice and straight.

The final step was creating the button holes and sewing on the buttons. This is usually my least favourite step, since I don't entirely trust the button hole function on my sewing machine. For some reason at least one button hole usually goes awry and has to be unpicked and re-sewn and this dress was no exception to the rule.

And that's it! One gorgeous looking Alder Shirtdress complete!