Crinkle Gauze Emerald Dress (with patch pockets)

I made an Emerald Dress out of crinkle double gauze. Emerald is designed to be cut/sewn on the bias, but I don’t recommend making Emerald on the bias with a fabric like this, because it stretched like crazy and was fairly fussy to sew with, making it a bit of a nightmare to sew with. By contrast, I find that most typical (non-crinkly/bubbly) double gauzes are quite stable and easy to sew with, other than having to be a bit careful that your seams don’t fray (example of that type of double gauze would be the Yellow Trillium). So all that to say: I cut this on the straight grain rather than on the bias. That’s Mod #1. Here some of the other mods…

Lining rather than facings

The second modification was that I used an unidentified off-white rayon from my stash to line the dress. I cut identical (also on-grain) front and back pieces, and then — once the center and shoulder seams were sewn — sewed the necklines together and used the “burrito method” to sew the armholes (you can see the basic method in the Ruby Yoke videos #1 and #2). Then I sewed down the side seams, which are slightly on the bias, so that was effing tricky as eff and they got super stretched out and looked like a ruffled side seam which sounds OK but I don’t think is ever a good thing. So I unpicked them and used strips of fusible interfacing to stabilize the seam allowances, and that worked much better.

Added patch pockets

These are just rectangles with the edges folded over, but I did hand-sew them to the dress because I wanted them to have invisible seams instead of topstitching them.

Hand-sewed the hem

After sewing the side seams (as mentioned before, they were tricky) there was no way in hell I was going to be able to attach a facing to that curved hem, so I trimmed down the hemline to make it less curvy. Then I used a strip of interfacing to stabilize the hem, folded it over twice, and handstitched it to finish it. I did attempt to machine-sew it first, but then didn’t really like how the stitch line looked, so I pulled it out and resewed it by hand. Like the pockets, I prefer that the seam is invisible.

Looking back, lining the Emerald Dress is potentially a huge timesaver; after all, the most time-consuming part of sewing this dress is attaching all of the facings (neck, arms, hem). The facings are a big reason why I gave the Emerald a skill level rating of “intermediate” rather than “beginner” (that, and the bias-cut aspect). But the fact that I chose a fabric like crinkly gauze pretty much erased any of those gains. If you do decide to sew with crinkle gauze, just proceed with caution. I’ll see if I can put up a few tips for working with double gauzes here on the blog.

On the other hand, I really think the finished dress is quite lovely and I’ve worn it a bunch. The fabric is so super soft and comfortable, and matches my Mosaic Shawl. Overall: win! Would I use this fabric again to make this dress again? Maybe. It’s finicky…yet so gorgeous and cosy.

Emerald is available in the shop as a PDF pattern, and comes with print at home pattern pieces and copyshop pattern pieces, all with layers. The pattern is designed for chest measurements 32-58” and hip measurements 34 - 59.” Emerald has a max finished hip of 67.”

We also have a layered projector file for Emerald available on request - just reply to your purchase email and ask us to email it to you (it’s in beta - so I’d appreciate any feedback projector users have for us!!).

PS. I bought this double gauze fabric at Ewe Fibers - it really is soft and lovely and comes in a variety of fun colors. I think a Cleo skirt or Luna shorts out of crinkle gauze would be really amazing!!