True Bias Calvin Wrap Dress Hack

If you've been reading long, you know I love to find clothes on Pinterest to recreate. Today's dress is inspired by a beautiful dress for sale on Etsy.

I've had this dress pinned for a while, but out of the blue I realized that the front of it looks similar to the True Bias Calvin Wrap Dress. I'm not big on woven wrap dresses so I never paid much attention to this pattern, but I couldn't get this hack out of my head! I bought the pattern and made the top to figure out how it's constructed, and how best to proceed with the changes to the back.

Using my muslin and dress form, I draped a pattern piece for the back. I obsessively studied the photos online and tried to figure out how to put the dress together. I made an entire dress from black linen and decided that the back wasn't quite right. 

I made the back piece bigger and proceeded with a second dress in this GORGEOUS sea glass linen, from iSeeFabric. It was better, but ultimately I had some gaping and added a dart for a better fit. For the skirt, I roughly used the Calvin pieces. The front has no gathering and the back is about 2:1 with an elastic casing at the waist.

After making two of these dresses, I think it would be better in a linen/rayon blend with more drape. I'm resisting the urge to do it, because how many of these dresses do I need?! But the itch is still there and still wants scratching, so who knows.

The Calvin Wrap Dress pattern was well written and drafted. You do need to enjoy making bias tape though. I used this kit for mine. The original pattern has directions for making a thread loop to hold the wrap ties, which I had never done. It turned out to be useful in my hack, as I added a loop at the back of the neck.

I truly love finding RTW inspiration and using my sewing skills to figure out my own version!