The Chalk and Notch Fringe Dress was my first project of what has started out as a very slow month for sewing. Essentially, life happened, and I ended up extending a trip upstate by a couple of days due to a completely punctured tire. Thankfully, this happened in my sister’s driveway and not on the road, but it also happened at an extremely odd time when we couldn’t bring it in to be fixed, and long story short, my stay ended up being about four days longer than I originally intended.

I spent the time enjoying the extra days with my niece and nephew, and dreaming of the sewing projects I would be doing when I got back to my machine (my sister has a machine, so theoretically I could do projects at her house, but I’ve been spoiled by my overlocker at this point and didn’t want to work on projects with out it). One of those projects was the Fringe Dress, which I had all cut out and ready to go on my dining room table.

I ended up being thrilled with the final product:

The pattern was extremely easy to work with, and the instructions were very clear and precise. The bodice features bust and waist darts, and you have the option of putting the waist ties in the front darts, side seams or back darts. I had one moment of frustration when I forgot to insert the ties into the front darts and had to unpick a little bit to fix my error, but otherwise this went together like a dream. I even chose the option without buttons/buttonholes so there was no closure to deal with. I would say the main thing that I found even remotely tricky was hemming: the hem is longer in the front and back and shorter on the side seams, so I had to take little extra care when I was pressing it up.

The fabric I chose was a wacky cotton lawn that I found at – where else? – Sew Over It. It screamed 80’s to me, and I tend to refer to it as my “Saved By the Bell” dress (if you don’t know that reference, just see if You Tube has the theme song and you’ll know what I mean!).

The fit on the dress is great – it’s a little bit of a looser fit than I usually like, but with the addition of the ties, you can cinch the waist in to get the look you like.

This dress ended up being an extremely quick sew. I know that I sew very quickly in general, but this took just a few hours. I find that one of the reasons I can get through projects so fast is because I always tend to have a pile of them cut out and ready to sew (I like to batch cut). Almost immediately after finishing the dress, I wore it to a birthday party – I love when I get to don something fresh off the sewing machine!

All in all in was a really fun make, and it’s equally fun to wear!