Jumping on the Cris Wood Sew Parasol bandwagon, and continuing my gathers sewing bender! The Parasol Dress and Top pattern is a simple but dramatic pattern that can be made with or without sleeves, with a low V back and front, adjustable neck tie, and gathered skirt. The Parasol is a zero paper waste pattern, which means there are no paper pattern pieces to print, cut and tape. The pattern uses simple formulas to allow you to grade the pattern to your own personal measurements. For my Parasol, I used a pretty kelly green cotton gauze, which is super lightweight and floaty. This was a remnant from my stash... you might remember I used some of this fabric for a Seamwork Mojave swim cover up several years back. After plugging my measurements into the Parasol pattern's formula and playing around with my cutting layout with this fabric (imagine me jotting down measurements, drawing layouts, and generally puzzling over it like that math lady meme), I used the full width of the fabric for the skirt. As such, my skirt pieces are 56 inches rather than 50 inches, which is what I calculated for my hip width with Cris' formula. I figured the super lightweight gauze could take the extra width and gathers. I ultimately decided to extend the bodice slightly to lower the waistline slightly. I extended the bodice pieces by 2 inches total, which really means I extended it by 1inch on the front and back since the bodice pieces go up and over the shoulder. I had to extend the facings, too, to match the bodice. I also decided to interface the facings and the ties, because my fabric is so light and I wanted to add a smidge of structure. I used 1 inch strips of tricot interfacing (I got a roll of it from Wawak after seeing someone on Instagram using it, maybe Loni?, and it's been a delight) and ironed the strips down the center of the facing and tie pieces. Finally, I also ended up raising the armholes by about 3 inches and the back opening by about 4 inches. Otherwise it would have been basically my entire bra showing under the arms and at the back. I know this is at least partially due to the fact that I added 2 inches in length to the bodice, but if you make the Parasol, I just want to encourage you to try the bodice on after sewing the front, back and side openings but before topstitching the facing and armholes to make sure you're happy with the coverage! My Parasol is really cute! Definitely more baby doll-ish than I normally go for, but fun, summery and playful and twirly, for sure.
