Two dresses for you today from my almost-ready-to-release newer-than-new sewing pattern, Bianca!!! This pattern will come in both a top and a dress length, and I’ve blogged about the top version already but now it’s time to show you a few dresses now that I’m not pregnant and can actually wear them. The first one was made with a drapey white linen, harvested from a beautiful old linen tablecloth of my grandmother’s that had holes in a few places and was unusable. She always it on the table for Sunday dinners along with her white china dishes that had silver around the edges. It was so elegant. This dress is a fun and definitely more casual way to give the fabric a new life. I don’t know, do I strike you as the fine china type?

I like it with a colored belt; it breaks up all the white. The belt also helps mask the fact that the elastic lines on both these dresses are a bit high on me because it was made according to my pre-baby measurements (read: pre-nursing boobs). One of the things I think is really clever about this pattern — if I do say so myself HAH — is that the front facing (which starts at the neckline and ends at the elastic lines) can be adjusted to be longer or shorter for larger or smaller busts or longer or shorter torsos. The idea being that this pattern is most flattering when the elastic hits you at the right spot, which is different for everyone, right? So I’ve written a section showing how to measure yourself and adjust that pattern piece to your own measurements.

Like Ruby, this dress is really more of a “mini-dress” — there’s something about the proportion of the top part of the dress that just looks better to me with a shorter skirt. Plus, since I wear leggings or skinny jeans most of the time, shorter dresses make more sense, but it would be super easy just to lengthen the hem if you wanted something longer. I’m also pretty sure that the floral version I’m wearing below is the length we ended up going with, rather than the length shown above, which as you can see is a wee bit scandalous on my 5’9 frame. I’m sure Mr Rae would think it’s fantastic. Helloooo, date night!

The other thing I think is clever about this pattern is that the area right below the facing is flat instead of gathered, which flattens out your belly visually, but then the rest of the waist is gathered and cinched in, which is quite flattering. You can see that effect especially in this lovely floral rayon version: