Sewing Pattern Marta Dress Sewalong – Fabrics and Cutting

Hello and welcome back to our summerdress sewalong. Today on our to-do-list there is the choice of fabric and the cutting of the Marta Dress. Also I give you some tips of how to adjust the bustier. But now first let’s take a closer look on which fabric is suitable for the Marta Dress.

Suitable Fabrics for Sewing Pattern Marta Dress

Concerning the choice of fabric you should note that this pattern is consisting of some different pattern pieces. This means that you should better go without big patterned or checkered fabrics. Better use plain or small patterned fabrics. However, if you want to have some variety you could i.g. use two or three different plain fabrics. Look what we made sewing the Marta Skirt!

The quality of the fabric should not be to flimsy, so that the bustier does not “slide away”, but it also does not have to be to thick as the skirt should be swinging and having a nice drape.

Well-suited for the Marta Dress are i.g. fine linen, cotton with a soft drape or light denim. For our Marta Dress we used wonderful Linen from Merchant & Mills. We absolutely fell in love with this bright and brilliant yellow and the quality is just great!

Here some other fabric inspirations for the Marta Dress

Wonderful red & white jacquard from Pretty Mercerie

Cotton muslin in all colors from Stoffe Hemmers

Tourquoise silk-satin with little floral patterns from The Fabric Store

Cottons with little golden dots form France Duval at Lilly Stoff Paris

Beautiful coral Kokka Double Gauze at 1000Stoff

I for myself will use for this sewalong a light jeansblue Denim. Mainly because I just love denim and would like to have a denim summerdress for my own..:)

Sewing Pattern Marta Dress – pattern pieces / cutting

As I already mentioned the Marta Dress consists of several pattern pieces. But don’t worry! All you need is some patience because it takes some time to put together the different pieces but in the end it is not that difficult!

If you look through the instructions you will see a detailed cutting plan. Just follow this one and hardly anything will go wrong anymore. In order that you see how the pieces come together I prepared two photos and the lovely sketch Marta made and numbered all pieces.

Best you just arrange the pieces like in the following order:

Sewing Pattern Marta Dress – Skirt Front

1 Front center skirt section – 2 x
2 Fron side skirt section – 2 x
3 Welt pocket – 2 x
4 Front Side Skirt Section – Upper Part –  2 x

Sewing Pattern Marta Dress – Bodice Front

8 Upper Cup Section – 2 x
9 Lower Cup Section  – 2 x
10 Front Corsage – 2 x
12 Straps – 4 x
15 Front waistband – 4 x
17 Button Tape  – 2 x

Sewing Pattern Marta Dress – Skirt Back

6 Back center skirt section – 2 x
7 Back side skirt section – 2 x

Sewing Pattern Marta Dress – Bodice Back

11 Back Corsage – 2 x
12 Straps – 4 x
13 Back Waistband  – 2 x on the fold

These pattern pieces you also have to cut out of fusible interfacing and iron it to the left side of the pieces:
12 Straps – 2 x
13 Back Waistband – 1 x Stoff im Bruch
15  Front Waistband  – 2 x
17 Button Tape  – 2 x

Sewing Pattern Marta Dress – Adjusting the Cup Size

So that in the end your dress fits nicely I would like to make some notes on how to adjust the cup size. The cup size of the dress correspond with a B-Cup size. So if your size is a B-Cup you might not have to make any adjustments as the underbust measurement is graded.

The cup consists of two pieces: No. 8 the upper cup section and No. 9 the lower cup section. For adjustments you also should cut the font corsage (No. 10) and the upper piece of the button tape (No. 17). Al these pieces sew together using some muslin or a left over fabric piece.  Also you only need to sew one half of the bustier to make the fitting.

  • If the cup does not fit unravel the cross seam up to 1 mm before the marks (see sketch below).
  • The cross seam now can leap as wide as you need for your cup size. Now measure how much has to be added or taken away and add this measure with an equal part to the sub-top of the upper cup part and on the upper seam of the lower cup part.
  • (If these steps are still not sufficient after another fitting, the two cup sections can be cut diagonally down to the bottom of the cups.) The sketch shows how the cup then has to be opened or closed.)

  • Now put a paper below the pattern pieces and adjust the upper and lower cup part accordingly with a curve ruler. Make sure that the seams always remain the same length!
  • If necessary, you can also adjust the side and middle cup edges at the top part of the cup. Make sure, however, that the button tape must be changed accordingly.

I hope this post helps you to understand what kind of fabric you should choose and what else you need to prepare before starting to sew. On Thursday (3.8.) we finally start sewing the skirt.

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