Thomas Mason for J. Crew -Inspired Wrap Dress

Thanks for the inspiration J. Crew. I'm sure the Thomas Mason cotton you used is epic and worth the $400, but I wanted a stripe instead of gingham (used a super lightweight cotton). This was crazy easy to make.

Tutorials take a lot of time & effort to create, and I choose to make mine available for free. If you enjoy this guide, you can support me with a donation that feels right for you, here.

TOOLS:

Light cotton (I used 1.5 m but 2 m is safer)  |  Scissors  |  Pins  |  Thread & sewing machine  |  Fabric marker  |  Didn't make the photo but I used some cotton lacing/ribbon to finish my seams + a couple of buttons to secure the waist

I. Here's my cut skirt piece (I'm a EU 36/US4)..

.. and top pieces.

II. Next I finished the edges of my belt pieces by pressing once (0.7 cm fold)..

... Pressing twice..

.. And sewing a straight stitch to finish.

III. Next I placed the back piece and the two front pieces together shoulders aligned, right sides facing, and sewed the shoulder seams.

IV. To attach the belt bits, I pinned them onto the sides of the back piece, a couple cm up from the bottom edge, right side facing right side of top..

.. And then took the front pieces down and aligned the sides to pin, so the belt pieces were sandwiched in between. Then sewed the side seams.

+ Here's a look at the side seam with the belt inserted.
V. When I tried the top part on for fit at this point, there was some tension in the arm holes, so I added a dart on each side to get rid of that.

VI. Next I marked the center point of the skirt waistline, and that of the back piece of the top:

.. So I could align those and pin the top piece to the skirt, right sides facing. Then sewed them together.

VII. To finish the raw edges you could just do a double-fold. I wanted to experiment with using this cotton lace/ribbon I had lying around, using it kind of like you use bias tape. I first pinned it on the right side along the side I wanted to finish, with a small fold up at the start and the end..

Then sewed it in place as close to the side of the ribbon that's next to the raw edge as possible, and cut the excess fabric next to it off.

Then with the help of my iron I folded the ribbon onto the reverse side, and sewed the fold in place on the right side.

The result looked like this. I really liked the clean look and will probably experiment with this, but by doing it the other way around so this ribbon finish is visible on the right side of the fabric. Kind of like piping, but a bit more subtle. I did this finish on the arm holes and the front seams, and just went with the basic double-fold for the hem.

VIII. As the last step I added a couple of snap buttons to where the dress right and left side meet each other as you wrap it around yourself. This was just for extra hold, the belt actually ended up keeping the dress in place pretty well.

xo,

Julia