You can’t go wrong with a sack dress, right?

I still haven’t really cottoned onto making muslins (a tester version of a pattern in inexpensive fabric you can make changes on before cutting into your nice fabric). Even if I had, I probably wouldn’t have made a muslin for a sack dress. It’s a sack. How can it not fit?

I was surprised by the tweaking the Wiksten pattern would have required for a good fit. I’m glad, though, because I learned about two alterations I can make for future projects. I mentioned the forward shoulder adjustment when I talked about trying to fix the Wiksten. I discovered its companion, the high round back adjustment, a couple of months later. I love the way sewing uses neutral terms for alterations.The Wiksten has a pretty, but heavy, gathered yoke at the back of the dress. Because of my carriage? Bearing? (“posture” is such a loaded word for me), the weight of the dress caused it to slide back as soon as I put it on. I already hate having anything tight near my neck. Forget having something tight that reminds me of a sewing mistake.

In addition to my fit issues, while I love the color of the fabric, (a Brussels Washer yarn dyed linen blend), the drape and feel weren’t great. I wonder if I had pre-washed with hot water if I would have had better results – but that’s another trick I learned after I made the dress. Between that and the missing alterations, the first version was doomed from the start.

I cut straight across the dress right above the pockets after determining how long I wanted the skirt to be. I removed the pockets and set them aside.

I used scraps I had leftover from the dress to make a waistband, using the waistband from my Arenite pants as a template for width. I created a flat front/gathered back using the same idea as I did with this skirt. I used the technique for finishing the Arenite waistband on the back half of the skirt and the same two-inch elastic.As I was working, I took the side seams of the skirt in by sewing a seam half an inch inside the side seams, removing 2 inches of ease. This allowed me to fold over the fabric around the side slits one more time so that I had a clean finish for the entire hem.

I popped the pockets back on at a slant that took them part way over the side seam at the top corner, and they are one of my favorite parts of the project.

Bonus? The pockets are big enough for a cell phone. Or, a secret stash of Reese’s pieces. Since they’re now anchored at my waist instead of floating in a sea of fabric, they function better when they’re being used.

For the top, I sewed a 5-inch strip of fabric for the front to a wider piece for the back. I sewed them to the (very) cropped top using French seams. I tacked down the seam that went around the circumference of the top with a 3.5 width stitch to reduce bulk.I trimmed the back so that it curved lower than the front. When I tried it on, it was clear the gathered yoke created too much ease. I estimated I could afford to remove up to 4 inches of bulk.

I marked the center of the yoke, then two inches on either side of the center, and gathered 3 equi-distant pleats of fabric, grading them to nothing at the top where they met the yoke. They were about 5/8 in. wide at the bottom of the shirt.I didn’t worry about make all the seams line up perfectly along the pleat in the back because it was tone on tone. Plus, I knew I would have driven myself crazy trying. Here’s the inside view of the pleats in the back:To make it easier with the curved hem in back, I sewed a quarter inch seam around the hem to act as a guide, then finished it with a quarter inch hem folded over twice and tacked down with a 3.5 stitch width.When I started seeing matched separates making their way around the internet sewing community, I thought, that’s ok, but I’m never going to do it. I’m often suspicious of trends until I buy in right at the end when no one else is doing it anymore. But I couldn’t bear to waste the fabric I used on my Wiksten just because I didn’t really want a matching top.

And you know? I like it. The top still tends to slide back a little, but not as badly as it did as a dress. The skirt is breezy and comfortable and the slanted pockets are placed just where my hands tend to go.

I might come back to the Wiksten. I kind of want to give it another try with both the alterations I require and a lighter weight fabric. For now, I have a Wiksten-ish set of separates that fit and function better than the dress did for me.