Hi there crafty buddies!!
Since it’s been such lovely weather here in the UK this last week (which by the looks of it is due to go back to dreary rain this coming week tho!), I’ve been reminded to catch up with posting my older makes from summer 2024!
That said it’s only around 14-15°C (~58°F) but that plus the sun being out and that’s my perfect temperature for sitting outside, hand sewing some doggy bow ties and watching the puppers play!
I digress… here’s my dress from August 2024!
So I love a good cover-up, I’m very self conscious of the size of my upper arms, but I hate wearing things like t-shirts because I don’t like wearing sleeves and I feel trapped in higher necklines (is that just me??).
Soooo I like to have a good amount of very light cover-up options, ones that are breezy enough so I don’t burn up, and that are light enough that I don’t have the sensory issues. And when I saw this lovely red chunky stretch mesh fabric I decided it would be perfect for another summer cover-up.
My only issue with the chunky mesh fabric is the same issue I have with any mesh/open knit fabric (frankly any fabric tbh!), which is that I have absolutely no spatial awareness so I keep getting caught on absolutely everything, but that’s defo a me thing!!
I used the McCalls M8110 dress pattern that I got on sale a few years ago, I’m generally not a great fan of paper/big company patterns (I really struggle to get my head round some of the instructions/diagrams, and I much prefer having pdf (print at home) patterns than tissue ones that I can easily rip!) I was pretty happy with this one. I did admittedly rip one of the pattern pieces, but other than one silly mistake skipping a couple of steps I got through the instructions relatively fine. 
I adapted the sleeves to be make them much more flared, both to account for my sizier arms, and because I figured it would feel cooler that way. I also picked a nice big feature button for the back, just for fun-sies!
All in all I’m really happy with the way my cover-up dress came out, it’s super comfy and a great addition to my summer wardrobe 
The only thing I would change in hindsight is that I would use foldover elastic on the neck binding instead of jersey bias binding, the pattern did call for foldover elastic, but I’d had difficulty with it in the past and got jersey bias instead, but it’s nowhere near as stretchy as elastic. Not an issue in my final item, but just caused me a bit of pain whilst sewing it up. 
Anyways, hope you like it, and I hope the weather is nice where you are, I know some of the US has been having a heatwave recently, yikes! 
Loops x
