My Finished Alabama Studio Camisole Dress

This post is a part two in a series, see the first post here. Where I left off last time was right after painting my fabric pieces with the Magdalena stencil, and then testing out the couching embroidery technique on swatch. Since then, I’ve spent about a year embroidering this fabric. This was my first year of being a Mom, so most of this stitching was done while my baby was napping or while I was sitting next to him and he was doing his tummy time. Looking at all this embroidery brings back sweet memories!

I did all of the outlines first, and then decided not to cut out any fabric within the outlines. You can see that I played with this technique in my swatch, but once I finished the embroidery I just loved the way it looked. Piecing the dress together felt like it went so fast after the embroidery, so I think I ended up putting the dress together in just one week, which felt fast considering it is all hand sewing!

To piece the dress I used Coat’s & Clark Button & Craft thread in brown, and then I felled all of the seams down with a top stitch in the same thread. The binding on the neckline and armholes is sewn on using the same thread and the cretan stitch.

During construction I did end up making a couple modifications to the pattern. I never made a mock-up for this dress so I was crossing my fingers it would fit okay, luckily the modifications I made were very easy to do. I shortened the straps and lowered the armholes by an inch, which essentially just lifts the neckline as it was too low on me. I had also cut a size large from the pattern, which matched my postpartum body measurements, but I am a little smaller now so I took out a 1/2” at each side seam and also graded the waist into more of an hourglass shape. I left the extra slack in this seam in case I ever want to make this dress a little bigger again! I didn’t take too many progress pictures of these modifications, so hopefully I explained it alright!

I got to wear this dress out to dinner already. It does feel like a fancy dress both because of the heavy weight of it but also because of the shape and structure of it. The skirt really holds it’s shape well. I will definitely sew this pattern again but next time I will try with just plain fabric and adding a corset tie to the back. And as for the embellishment technique, I am very happy I gave it a try! I loved working with the fabric paint and the stencil, it’s such a great way to give yourself an outline for embroidery. Couching stitch was fun too, although I would not attempt to do it on such a large piece again, maybe just for a camisole shirt instead. Overall the Alabama Chanin style it so unique and fun to play with, I recommend taking a look at the books and giving it a go!