Hello again! I am finally back to posting after a roughly three year hiatus. Despite not posting here, I haven't slowed down sewing at all, and I now have an enormous backlog of projects I'd like to write about. In the interest of making progress, I'm going to try to write a little more efficiently than I have in the past- so some of these posts may have a little less detail, for better or for worse.
In this post, I'll be discussing a dress I made using Know Me 2108, one of the cutest mainstream patterns to come out in recent years! (In my opinion, anyways.)
Fun sewing patterns make me happy these days, especially considering how depressing the current state of affairs in the sewing world is (and the regular world, for that matter). When I first sat down to write this post, I rambled quite a bit about the loss of JoAnn Fabrics and the lack of availability of paper patterns in craft stores these days. Hobby Lobby no longer sells paper patterns, leaving Walmart as the last resource for paper patterns. And only Simplicity. Anyways, I've decided to delete the rest of my rambling thoughts, because they aren't important. On to the rest of the post!
Know Me 2108, designed by Alissa Threads, is a relatively simple shift dress with a fun heart cut out in the back! The dress has bust darts, two sleeve options, a button and loop closure in the back, and side seam pockets. Optionally, you can add lace around the heart cut out and the sleeves. Construction wise, there is nothing complicated about this pattern! It was fun and rewarding.
The only iffy point was applying lace around the edges of the heart. This pattern recommends flat lace trim, making it unnecessary to finish the edges. However, I wanted to use some eyelet lace I had in my stash (more on that below) , so I opted to fold down the bottom of the edge of the lace and topstitch it down. I considered sandwiching the lace inside the facing seam of the heart, but felt this might have made things overly complicated.
The lace is from Spotlight in Singapore. I was fortunate enough to make it to Singapore before I moved from Japan in 2024, and I was pleasantly surprised by the vast selection. I remember thinking it was similar to JoAnn at the time. It would now be nice to have Spotlight stores in the US! The lace is a basic cotton eyelet lace with hearts embroidered on. I also got a similar lace with puppies on it, that I'll have to put to good use eventually.
I found the sizing of this pattern to be true to size. The dress is only fitted around the bust, but I would still recommend measuring the pattern pieces themselves or make a mockup if you're concerned.
The only real change I made to this dress is swapping out the elastic around the sleeve hem for a full cuff. I don't really like the feel of elastic around my arms, so I went for something different! This also allowed me to add a little more lace to the dress.
As for fabric, I used a pink polyester satin from Joann Fabrics (RIP). It was one of the final fabrics I bought before they closed, and I believe it may have been a part of the Draper James collaboration they had at the time. Many of those fabrics were so cute! I made another dress using some of the heart linen that I need to post here.
As a true satin hater, I used the back side of the fabric as the "right" side, because I truly despise the look of shine, particularly in the realm of casual clothing. But despite this, I really like how the underside looks. It's also pretty comfortable having the smooth side face inwards.
I seemingly didn't take many photos while working on this dress. That, or they're buried deep in my phone somewhere. (That's what happens when you wait a year to write about your creative endeavors!) So, I don't have much to show at this point other than the dress itself.
Boots in the photos are the Jeffrey Campbell Monsieur boots!
That's all I have to say for this post! It'll be nice to pull this dress back out my closet when the weather is warmer.
I'm happy to respond to any comments below.
If you'd like to see more of my projects with hearts, click here!
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