13 Jun Style Arc Teena Dress

Do you know that the one color you should never wear for a job interview is…….

This is no office dress – rather one ready for those hot summer nights and ‘dressy casual’ occasions!

Greetings from the home front 🙂
My pattern is the Style Arc Teena Dress , a pattern I bought last summer in consideration for my mother of the bride dress.

Had I made a muslin last summer I would have known that the pattern would have worked beautifully as a long dress for the occasion.

I’ve been a Style Arc fan since sewing my first pattern over 3 years ago. The patterns fit beautifully even if they aren’t especially user friendly.

What I truly love about the Teena Dress are the two-piece side panels seen in the illustration above and the photo below. The front side and back side panels are split horizontally enabling a superior fit through the bodice. It’s difficult to determine the seam lines due to the fabric design, but a click or two on the photograph below will show you the details.

Two fabrics are used for the dress. The top layer is an Italian red coral cotton eyelet from Mood Fabrics, but the structure of the dress and the depth of color are provided from the lining. Labeled a hibiscus cotton batiste (no longer available) on the Mood website – it is more like a cotton poplin with stretch! I never intended to use the two fabrics together, more like they found each other in the stash 😉

Style Arc patterns are shipped from Australia, sold in single sizes, use a 3/8 ” seam and offer sparse instructions. However, the sizes are accurate and the website provides a page of sewing tutorials, tips and construction features for techniques found in the patterns.

Sadly, I was unable to find an invisible zipper to match the fabric, but the slotted zipper worked nicely. I made two slight design changes in raising the back 1 inch and increasing the strap width from 1/4″ to 3/4″.

Though the pattern calls for boning only on the strapless version, I added two pieces of 6″ spiral steel boning to the upper bodice sides. I could not insert the boning into the 3/8″ seams which led to making a casing for the boning and stitching it to the wrong side of the lining. Once the lining was sewn and turned it’s practically invisible.

One of the things I love most about sewing is the constant state of flexibility I’ve developed through my beloved hobby. The pattern was not used as intended, the batiste was not what I expected, and yet one year later the stars aligned and a new dress was created.

Who knows what will be next!

Until soon 🙂