Feminine Military Inspired Fall Dress

Hey guys!
Happy St. Patrick's Day! I have been wanting to use this fabric for about 6 months and didn't know what to do with it, but I found my inspiration by this Pinterest post, which looked gorgeous. I loved the square scoop neck and the sleeves. I thought this would look great for a transition to fall.

The fabric I have is heavy stretch knit warm fabric that is similar to the color of this Pinterest dress. I decided to pursue the creation of this dress. First, I made the sleeves (using the looks of my long sleeve t-shirts). I cut it out to be about half long sleeve length. In the pictures I took, it looks blue but it is an army green.

Once I sewed the first sleeve together, I tried it on, and it was too tight. I found some bias tape and used it since it was the perfect beige color and I didn't have enough fabric to make another sleeve. It turned out much better for the sleeve.

Then I made the outline for the top, I pretty much traced a basic form fitting stretchy shirt and then made it like this dress' top. The front was a square (free hand drawn with chalk) and the back was a bit shorter than what I traced originally. I had to keep cutting the front square once I tried it on to make it the "deepness" of the inspiration dress. Sorry this picture is upside down, I can't flip it. :(

Once done with this, I moved onto the skirt portion. My mom always complains that my dresses are always too short, I made sure this time it wouldn't. I made it into a basic 25" radius circle skirt so the skirt would go down to my knee. I wanted it this long because it is a fall dress, not a summer dress (we want to stay warm here). Here is the picture of the cut semi circle on a fold feat. a cute cat.

I sewed the top to the skirt and made two pleats right below the bust area. I attached the sleeves perfectly and hemmed all the raw edges.

Finally, to complete the army look, I added two long striped that go all the way around the hem of the skirt. It gave an extra pop of color and contrast to the green. Since the dress was very stretchy, I ended up not needing a zipper, I was able to slip it on and off without a problem! Thanks for reading, comment what you think. :)

 

PS. I took a video of me spinning and then screenshotted some cool spin in action pictures :)