A Denim & Faux Leather Dress

I've been on the hunt for a great denim dress. I've spent quality time snoop shopping at Macy's Herald Square. I've searched the internet and especially Pinterest and I've come up with a list of denim dresses that I'd like to incorporate into my spring/summer wardrobe.

There are several reasons why denim dresses hold so much appeal for me now.

1. It allows me to wear a dress in my very casual work environment.
2. Denim dresses are something I've never really sewn before. I know that jeans are in and everyone is making them but I'm a dress girl so denim dresses really speak to me.
3. The dresses I've found and been inspired by are stored in an album on Pinterest. They've really sparked me creatively.
4. By limiting myself to the fabric I have on hand, I'm challenging myself to think outside the box and that's also exciting me.

So I'm making a couple of these as part of my Chicos Chic wardrobe. That said I did go my own way with this one.  I originally meant to sew a denim shift dress sort of like the examples I showed in my May Day post.  However, after pulling denim pieces down (yardage left over from making granddaughter dresses) nothing worked together like I imagined it.  Then I started to pull pieces from the pleather collection to see what would work with the denim remnants and that's when inspiration finally reared her head!

Here is what I came up with ~

This dress is made from a yard and a half of denim plus about a 1/2 yard of the faux leather. Since I started with my TNT dress pattern there are no instructions to give for this because I totally riffed it. I measured as I went so that everything matched and worked.

When I took my first pic and posted it on Instagram, I was awed by how cool it looked. I'm even more awed by the finish product. A TNT dress pattern that I reworked for my new life, yes!!!

A few things ~

• I used every piece of the yard and a half of denim in this dress. Even piecing some together to get the sleeves...there are only small scraps left.
• Surprisingly, the faux leather and the denim are similar weights so they work together and not against each other.
• Because the dress is unlined (who lines a denim dress?) I had to make facings for the dress...and those came from the scraps too.

Some more pictures ~

The first set of pictures were taken in the office...

...and these were taken at home...

Conclusion ~
There are several dresses in the pattern catalogs now that you can use to achieve this look, if you're interested. I would suggest Vogue 9017 or McCalls 6988. 

I'm thrilled with my new dress especially since it wore so well at work and I got quite a few compliments on it. However, even though it was denim, I still looked dressy for work. Good thing I had a dinner date with friends after work so I used that as my excuse! Look for more denim dresses to come since I've finished one more and started another!

...as always more later!