A museum dress

When you visit New York museums during the day you often see older women  decked out in wonderful clothing. They aren’t putting on their regular designer duds to wear to a gallery but rather something arty.  They might be wearing fairly nondescript black trousers and and sweater, but they are wearing a serious piece of sculpture piece of jewelry .  They might wear an artist made shawl or scarf or perhaps a dress that looks like it may have come out of Miyake’s atelier or the atelier of one of his followers.

For the last several weeks Fabric Mart has been showing a sweater knit in an amazing circle print. The fabric was listed as polyester. I am not a big fan of synthetic knits. The print was just so great.  I kept visiting the fabric on line. Fabric Mart had a half price sale. I had had a hard week,. I caved and bought the fabric.  The package arrived a few days ago.

The sweater knit was soft and drapey. It feels nice on the skin. I had planned to make a little cardigan with the fabric. Instead I decided to make a Miyake-like draped sweater/dress. it is one of those garments that looks complicated when on the body but couldn’t be easier to make.

The body of the sweater is a rectangle that is the width of the fabric.  I folded the fabric in half ( selvedges together).  Then I folded the fabric about 1/4 of the way from the fold and cut armholes, just simple half circles because I was cutting on the fold.I cut the arm holes fairly close to the top of the fabric. It is easy to play with the placement of the armholes, you get an entirely different look by moving the arm holes up or down. I put on the result. it was one of those cascade vests one sees everywhere. I decided to add sleeved. those were tubes of the knit.  Be sure to cut the sleeves with the stretch going around the arm. The stretch going from wrist to shoulder is not particularly helpful. I know this because each time I cut sweater sleeves I cut them the wrong way first.

I added a collar by serging a strip of fabric wrong way up to the neckline of the sweater. The whole process, including allowing time for re cutting the sleeves was about an hour, probably less.

Here it is, worn open.

Here is the sweater worn belted. Yes it can be worn as a dress.

I’m ready to go to the museum now.