Jalie 3352 Dolman-Dress Hack

After failing to apply some gray french terry bamboo jersey I bought to a Moneta, I decided it should work well with Jalie 3352. It did. It was nice, it was comfortable, it looked good. I gave it to my daughter before I could take a photo, but it looked kind of like this:

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The thing was...it looked very close to something I had been thinking of making...

This is a dress I had seen in an ad. I knew I could make that just as easily as I could order it (which never turns out to be true in the end, of course), so I snipped it and put it on my list of 2018 projects.

I had plenty of this fabric left, and I was worried that since I had NOT intended to make the dress from the outset, I might be forced into making frustrating adjustments or compromises for what I had in mind. Since my daughter liked the pullover, I gave it to her and started over.  I ended up with something I am pretty happy with!

At the time I decided to make this, I also had some red plaid cotton woven in my stash, so I thought I had everything I needed. I played around with it for a bit but I was worried the two fabrics wouldn't play nicely together in the end with one being stretchy and the other not; plus the woven wrinkles easily. Here is a picture where I was trying it out (actually, this is the first top I made that I gave to my daughter...I notice the neckline is finished—another reason I decided to start over; I didn't want to have to take that off):

I searched online and finally found a knit in the pattern I wanted at Cali Fabrics. I really like this company. This fabric is a brushed poly and it is as comfortable and easy to sew as advertised. I am super happy with the fabric and feel lucky to have found the plaid I was looking for.

I had to play around a bit with where the pattern would best be placed. Where it first wound up would have been way too low. I tried it on and felt like Grandma Moses. ​