HotPatterns.com Weekender It's a Wrap Top & Dress

Ever buy fabric that you absolutely love, but don’t have a particular pattern in mind to use it on? Last fall when I was shopping for fabric for the store, I bought some brown and white knit fabric purely because I loved the design. After I received it I thought it would make a very cute wrap style dress. HotPatterns.com just so happened to have the exact dress I had been thinking of so I ordered the pattern and recently made the dress.

First of all, you should know that HotPatterns does not include layout instructions. But I hope this won’t stop you from giving them a try. This pattern calls for “about 4 yards” of fabric for the size dress I wanted to make. After I assembled all my pattern pieces I quickly realized that I would need to cut them out in three different stages.


1. First I laid the fabric out selves together and cut the skirt front, bodice front, sleeve, back neck facing and the faux waist tie or bow. What also needed to be cut in this ‘batch’ was the front bodice facing and waistband; however these pattern pieces were not included with the pattern. I eventually ended up cutting a waist band 4” x 20” and using the left over fabric from the front bodice piece to cut the front facing piece. (in the picture it would be the 3” wide piece between the sleeve and bodice front).

2. Next I opened the fabric (wrong side up) and folded each selvedge edge in ½ way so that I had two folds. I then cut out the skirt back and bodice back – one on each fold.

3. Finally I took the remaining fabric and folded it so the selvedge edge was together. I then cut out the collar and under collar. I eventually didn’t use these pieces mainly because I couldn’t figure out how to attach them using the directions given, and because I thought the extra fabric would be heavy and uncomfortable in this knit fabric. If I make the skirt again (and I probably will in a lighter cotton fabric) I will figure out how to add this collar.

After I had all the pieces cut out, assembling the dress was fairly easy. The only ‘hick-up’ I encountered was the waist band and I think it was mainly because this was the point I discovered I didn’t have one. I also didn’t add the faux tie, again, with this knit fabric I just think it would have been too heavy and would have looked droopy instead of being a cute accent.

Over all the dress was simple enough to put together, I managed to finish it in one day. Cost was $28 for the fabric and $18.45 for the pattern for a total of $50.06 (including tax). Not bad for a ‘one-of-a-kind’ dress!