Before we left for Hawaii earlier this year,
I made myself a couple of Staple Dresses, which is a fabulous women’s pattern designed by the lovely April Rhodes.
Can I just say…I LOVE this pattern. Love it. It’s super easy to sew and easy to wear. You can dress it up or down and wear it in pretty much any season. You can sew a straight hem or a hi-lo hem, add pockets, or not.
The pattern comes a tad short for my taste, so I added maybe two inches of length?
I made one of the dresses from knit fabric (from Girl Charlee of course!) which made it great travel wear. It was super comfy, versatile and easy to toss in a suitcase.
I often liken it to wearing a muumuu, it’s that comfy, BUT it definitely doesn’t look like one. 😉
It makes me miss Hawaii too…especially on days like this:
Really though. The snow has it’s magic too. I do love this time of year.
And dressing up my “go to” Hawaii dress for a Rocky Mountain Fall is a cinch, which speaks to how awesome this dress pattern is.
I just grab some tights, boots, a comfy cardigan, and my Thousand Chains Scarf (easy tutorial HERE) and I am good to go.
For my second Staple dress, I made it floor length and widened the hem significantly. I found this ombre dyed $1 mystery silk, polyester blend fabric that is really buttery…almost like liquid in my hands and decided to give it a go.
I had it almost perfect but decided to take just a little bit of length off…mistake. The weight of the dress was pulling it down longer, so when I relieved that burden, it sprung up too short! I fixed it with a wide folded hem. It turned out okay… but not ideal.
Meh..I still wore it out. 🙂
It doesn’t lose any of its comfort factor in fancy form either. Which was a nice feeling…to be dressed up and feel comfortable. That’s an oxymoron most of the time.
There is so much fabric in the dress (4-5 yards I think?), which makes it kind of heavy, so I decided to leave out the shirring and just use a belt to cinch it up.
I promise it’s not this billowy either. We took these pictures on a bluff outside the condo we were staying at in Kauai, so it was really windy. You can see the golfers in the background. 😛
And now back to real life…
🙂
P.S. I bought this pattern from April Rhodes. She didn’t ask me to do this review, I just wanted to share how awesome it is! I will say that it is more than I usually spend on a pattern, but I haven’t regretted it. I can’t wait to fill up my closet with more Staple dresses once the hub bub of the holidays subsides.
Hi Delia, your dresses look stunning. And I wanted to say thanks for the site update – it loads way faster now than the old version. With the old version it took like 5 min to load with our connection (we only have 1000 Mbit DSL). And I especially like the arrows on the side to navigate to the next post.
Also great Crotchet series going on – I actually want to start to learn how to crotchet – this might actually spur me on to finally get started 🙂 (I am quite good at knitting and sewing – both self taught – so why should I not conquer crotchet as well…)
Greets,
Susanne (IG: lily28923)
Thank you so much Susanne! I am so so happy to hear that. And I’m happy to make a crocheter out of you. 😉 do it!
I love, love, love both versions! And you are from Hawaii? I didn’t know this. I grew up in Hawaii. My dad was military and we were so blessed to be stationed there for 8 years….my childhood years! Back to your dresses…they are wonderful!
I wish I was from Hawaii! I get that question a lot because I’m half Chinese. We just went to Hawaii for my brother’s wedding this summer. That is so neat that you were able to live there for 8 years! I hope to go back again and often. 😉 and…thanks for your kind compliments!
Delia you are so pretty! I probably say that every time. These dresses are both gorgeous, and look so different even though they’re the same pattern! Very nice.
You are so kind Kristin. Thank you!
Love how you styled the knit dress for fall!! I totally want to copy the whole outfit ; )
aw. thanks Heidi!
Pretty dresses! I love the longer version…. and I thought the band around the hem was a design detail until you mentioned otherwise. 😉
haha…well. I guess I shouldn’t have said anything! ha. Thanks Charity.
I love how you styled your staple dress for winter!
Thank you Lauren!
Delia, both look great on you! I’ve had this pattern cut out for two months now. I think after seeing your striped knit version I’ll make mine in knit…looks so comfy! you had me at muumuu.
You will not regret it! 🙂
Gorgeous dresses Delia! I agree with Kristin, you are such a natural beauty, and so photogenic. And perhaps I’m way behind on this, but I love the new blog design too, yay for WordPress! I have the Runway Theme too, it’s the best!
You are so sweet. Thanks Abby! I love Runway on your site! I can’t wait to tweak some of my fonts and play around with it some more. Your colors are perfect. Love it.
Delia, you’re so lovely! These dresses are fantastic. I love that this pattern can be dressy or casual. Fabulous job 🙂
Thank you Jess! 🙂
These are beautiful dresses! I can definitely see the versatility of this pattern! And I love your tights. Where did you get them?
Thank you Stacia! Kohls, over a year ago. 🙂
Oh my goodness — you are BRILLIANT at styling things (and making things!) Can I please copy your entire outfit for fall? Where did you find your darling tights, boots, and cardigan?! (I wasn’t kidding! 😉 )
Well done, once again!
Emily,
You are so nice! Thank you! Okay…so the cardigan was like $13? at Walmart, recently. The tights are from Kohls over a year ago. The boots are from Head Over Heels (a mall shop). The boots and shoes at Head Over Heels are pretty much always buy one get one half off too.
You look so beautiful, Delia! I love both of the dresses. And I love the new site, too! I really need a blog redo, but I don’t even know where to start.
Thanks Lindsay! It has been a lot of work and I still have some work ahead of me. It’s worth it, but so exhausting too! 🙂
An impressive share! I have just forwarded this onto a coworker who
was doing a little homework on this. And he in fact bought me dinner because I discovered it for him…
lol. So allow me to reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!!
But yeah, thanks for spending time to talk about this subject here on your site.
LOVE the dresses. I have a hard time making any because patterns always have dresses hit a few inches short. But making dresses is much easier than buying dresses that always hit way shorter than they should.
I hear ya on that! At least with a pattern you can make it fit you and your needs. 🙂 Isn’t sewing awesome?
Lovely dresses! My boys and I are making pilgrim hats tomorrow:) Happy Thanksgiving!
Love every about this post! It’s so nice to see the Staple Dress in different fabrics. And the scarf!!
Thanks Lorna! 🙂
Oh Delia, you are just beautiful, inside and out. I love all these posts. Your home is gorgeous–you totally made those walls work!! I’m so tired of beige in this house and we painted them, ha! But not the next house! Maybe a happy neutral though that will work with both grays and browns, just in case. Anyways, your blog look is lovely. Can I pick your brain about the move to wordpress?
Hi Delia, thanks for the nice tips….
I’m going to Hawaii on Friday for days and for the first time but I really don’t know what to wear…some people recommend like summer and light clothes other people is telling me that maybe is cold so I would need booties or boots ? is that true ?
thanks for the tips so I can bring the right clothes 😉
regards
Yay! How exciting for you! So I have only been there once. But my brother goes often. I think I remember him saying something about how the weather was nice but not necessarily beach/swimming worthy when he went in February. I doubt you would need boots. Honestly, I probably not the best person to ask. But I would bring warm weather clothes if I were you! 🙂 Have fun!
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