Out and About Dress by Sew Caroline

I can not say so many great things about this dress. I've made it in stretch knit, I've made it in sweatshirt fleece and I've made it in fleece. All of the dresses has turned out great. I'm a sucker for a great pattern.

This navy striped dress was my first Out and About dress. I love the way it fits, I love the way it hugs the curves. I followed the patter to a T until it got the the skirt part. I'm a fan of flouncy twirly skirts. I never really look at what is needed for the skirt part of a dress because I prefer to make my own. When I am dealing with 58/60 in fabrics I usually just use the length of 22 and cut across the width and down the seam to have my two pieces for the skirt. The rest of the pattern I followed. This navy striped knit was very stretchy, I could've went down a size and did the small. I like the comfort of it though.

This purple and brown one is my second one. I decided to try my hand at fleece with it. It turned out great. I did it the same way I did the one above it. Only this time as far as the neck binding goes, I used a stretch formal wear material as opposed to a ribbing as I did in the first one. I'm not sure if you're supposed to wash fleece or not before you sew with it. I however did not. I finally got around to washing the dress, I didn't put it in the dryer, I let it hang dry. The dress looks the same as it did when I put it in. There was no shrinking. I also changed my hair up a bit, believe it or not, I have yarn in my hair. I wanted to try something different with it and I put a side (something like a) ponytail in it. I like it this way much better; as you will see in the rest of the pictures.

This dress was done in sweatshirt fleece. Although I love the comfort of this dress, sweathsirt fleece doens't have the same stretch as knits and fleece. I should have made the Large or I should have cut the front of the bodice in the large. It was a breeze once the dress was on but putting it on was a small challenge. The pink ribbing is from JoAnn's. I bought it some time ago. They had so many pretty colors, green, yellow, pink and turquoise. I haven't seen it there since that one time two years ago,. Although I haven't tried it, I will use some Rit Dye when there is a ribbing color I need and all I have is white. 

This would probably be my all time favorite Out and About Dress. The Fox Fabric is from Girl Charlee Fabrics. I just found out the day of that I needed a dress for that next day, the staff was taking pictures. I needed a new dress and I didn't have the time to actually wash and iron this fabric. I went into dressmaking as soon as I took my clothes off and got settled. Once the dress was finished, I didn't even realize that I hadn't cut the dress at my regualr 22 inches long. Needless to say it must've been 24-25 inches long. The skirts I usually make for the dresses stop at 22 however, the bodice is much higher as well. Needless to say, I didn't have time to cut into it at all. I paired it with a pair of leggings (with a like color) and my tall boots. I used some cream ribbing because the fox's tail and chin was that color and I had a new dress. Found the belt in my closet begging to be worn and here it is. 

One of the best patterns out there for women wanting to use stretch knits. Go on over and buy the pattern. 

http://sewcarolinepatterns.bigcartel.com/product/out-and-about-dress-pdf-instant-download-pattern

 I will say this, the dress is worth the price tag, however, I was able to snag it when it was a whopping $5 from http://crafterhoursblog.com/?s=friday+fiver+sew+caroline

Make sure you bookmark Crafter Hours. You never know what pattern you may get for $5.