Victory Patterns Lola Dress(es)

Victory! A Lola Dress!

Let me just start by saying I love this dress! I wear it every chance I get.

On a topic on Stitcher's Guild, we got to talking about making cozy winter at-home dresses, and one member (Elaine, whose member name is Neufy) suggested the downloadable Lola from Victory patterns. Well, one look at it convinced me that I had to make it.

Even though I have vowed to sew up more of my stash this year, I discovered no sweatshirt knits in the horde, so promptly ordered one, and then another. Bad idea.

What I discovered I liked the best about this dress was its true sweatshirty-ness (not a real word), complete with exactly-matching ribbing. A quick search of the internet showed me that finding a perfectly-matching ribbing was well nigh impossible for the coral and spring green sweatshirt fabrics that I had purchased.

I had thought to make my own ribbing, using an article in Threads magazine (described here by Els, a consummate sewist) that a friend brought to my attention, but the sweatshirt fabric was too thick to make an authentic sweatshirt-type of trim that was to my liking.

While dancing around the project, I made up a quickie muslin of the dress, and I'm glad I did, because the pattern runs really large. I ended up taking in the size 6 in the shoulders and upper bodice and grading out from there, but not by much. However, since I planned on wearing the dress over thick tights or leggings on cold days, I graded out to a size 10 in the hips so there would be plenty of room.

Here's the muslin, made out of an aqua slubby terry cotton knit from my stash. I had barely enough fabric for the dress and even had to piece the pockets. I didn't have a piece large enough for the dress's bottom band, so had to leave it off.

 Besides learning that the size 6 that I had originally started with had to be taken in around the neckline and upper bodice, I learned about the Saggy Pocket Problem.

The pockets are large, extending from the side front to the side back seams. (There are no side seams.) The Pocket pattern piece is cut 1 inch larger at the upper edge than the width of the pattern's Lower Side piece at that point. I think the designer felt that a bit of ease might be necessary for that upper pocket edge to keep it from pulling on the Lower Front and Lower Back pieces during wear, and indeed for some fabrics, that may be the case.

To help support the pocket edge, I sewed a snap onto the pocket opening hem and the dress:

For the charcoal grey dress, I trimmed the excess off, starting at approximately 1 inch at the top of the front edge of the Pocket piece and tapering to nothing at the hem. Here is a photo of the wrong side of the pattern pieces showing the side front edge of the Lower Side piece on top of the pocket. The back edges of both the Pocket and the Lower Side piece are aligned (that edge not shown in this photo).

I did not have to use a snap for the charcoal grey dress's pocket since it did not sag or bulge out too much:

 The fabrics used for the two dresses are different, and the aqua slubby terry fabric is much more drapey than the sweatshirt fleece that I used for the charcoal grey dress. The drapiness of the aqua fabric may also have contributed to the Saggy Pocket Problem.

Here is a back view of the aqua slubby terry wearable muslin:

 Now, about the fabric for the charcoal grey dress, which I absolutely love, love love.

I went to a local discount store (Rose's) and purchased two men's sweatshirts, sized 2x/3x. They are a cotton/poly blend, Fruit of the Loom brand. I brought them home, washed them, removed the ribbing and pressed it, cut the shoulder, side, and sleeve seams open and studied the knit closely, thread tracing the grainlines on each piece. Then I placed and cut the pattern pieces and began sewing. The result is a Lola with a true sweatshirt vibe.

Here's a back view of the charcoal grey dress:

 One thing I noticed was the sweatshirt fabric's tendency to stretch at both the neck edge and the hem. Certainly some of that stretching was due to my sliding the dress on/off my dressform. (I did not have any stretching with the terry knit of the wearable muslin.)

When it came time to attach the ribbing, I saw the neckline had stretched nearly 2 inches in circumference. It didn't take much for me to coax it back into place with a bit of steam and then by staystitching the edge using clear elastic. I used the same method for stabilizing the neckline seam that I used on the seams of this Diane von Furstenberg knit dress a few years back.

Here's a photo of that clear elastic, caught by the serger's stitch over the seam allowance:

I assembled 80% of this dress on my serger, using the sewing machine for the topstitching and to attach the ribbing before serging the edges. 

 I used the multiple zigzag stitch on my sewing machine to attach the V applique at the center front, but wish that I had serged its edges as recommended in the instructions because I think it would have looked more authentic. I had fiddled with flatlocking that piece into place but was not satisfied with the look, so I secured it to the dress with Steam-a-Seam Lite and then used the multiple zig zag instead. I was pretty deep in the weeds by then and should have taken a break to re-think the situation. It was only later that I twigged to the fact that I could have simply serged the edges of the piece before attaching with a narrow topstitch. That wouldn't have had a true flatlock look but would have looked better, than the multiple zigzag IMO. Live and learn (or more to the point, I need to read the instructions now and again rather than winging it). : )

It was easy to coax the stretching at the hem back into place with a little steam from my iron before attaching the hem ribbing. I did not use clear elastic there.

To attach the neckline ribbing, I followed Sarah Veblen's excellent video tutorial. Using this method, I found that  ribbing piece I finally used was 1 inch shorter than that indicated on the Neckline Ribbing pattern piece, and it lies nice and smooth. I always use that method because it is foolproof and the results are perfect.

I also made these small changes to the pattern's instructions:

1. Pressed the seams exactly opposite as recommended. The side front/back seams were pressed toward the center and the high waistline seam was pressed up.

2.  Topstitched every seam. The recommended seam allowance is 3/8 inch for this pattern, so the topstitching is at a scant 3/8 inch. The instructions show topstitching in some of the drawings but do not mention actually doing it on all of the seams.

3. Lengthened the sleeves by 2 inches for a 3/4 length sleeve, which I prefer.

So that's it! I now have two cozy cuddly dresses to wear on these cold winter days. I haven't worn the aqua dress yet and it glares enviously at the charcoal grey one that is getting lots of out-of-the-closet time.     : )

The next projects will be to sew up those two pieces of sweatshirt fabric so that my stash stays at a steady state for the year to date. Back to work!