Like the Madewell Songbird Dress? Wanna make your own?

The Madewell "Songbird" dress is one of the brands most iconic styles and lucky for us girls who sew the classic style is super easy to replicate with minimal effort.

First grab yourself a copy of Colette Patterns Peony  dress. This style is nearly identical to the Songbird. The Peony features a bateau neckline rather than the round but this is easily altered should you wish ( if anyone would like me to do a tutorial please just ask!).

 

You can also alter the skirt to make it fuller if you wish, again this is a simple alteration. Put aside the skirt pattern piece and cut 2 rectangles both 2x waist measurement wide x desired length. Mark where you want your pockets to be ( you can use the pocket pattern piece from the peony dress) and attach as outlined in the peony instructions.

Stitch 3 rows of basting stitches along top of skirt piece, gather to fit bodice.

stitch skirt front and back together as outlined in peony pattern and voila you have your fuller skirt.

This dress is best made up in a mid weight cotton or wool. A chambray would look gorgeous and I love The striped version worn by Busy Phillips (pic below).

Mission Maxi Dress - Finished project

I made up this midi version of the Jamie Christina Mission Maxi dress last week on a particularly sunny, summery morning.
I used this gorgeous tie dye jersey from my stash and used self fabric for the binding, which was a little tricky to make as the fabric was so slippery!

This dress is ridiculously comfy but still stylish, which when you have two little kiddies and work from home is a must. In my experience someone always come to the door those days when you haven't done your hair and are slobbing around in trackpants.

The racer back gives a nice sporty feel to it, I know I will get loads of wear out of this. Throwing on over swimsuit after the beach, out to lunch or just at home.
The pattern itself is super simple, front and back pieces cut on fold and neck and arm openings finished with bias binding, how easy can you get??

 

You can buy a copy of the pattern in my shop here.

also just a quick note the 10% off Megan Nielsen patterns will finish on Sunday 16/9/2012.