It's ready, it's finally ready. I am so in love with the Southport dress and am excited show you all what I have been working on for the last bit behind the scenes. The Southport dress came from my desire to create a pattern that is as easy to wear as a coverup at the beach or pool as is it is to wear around town. The Southport comes in two versions. View A is short and hits 20" from the waistline and View B is maxi length falling 42" from the waist. Both versions have a simple button up feature at center front and a drawstring waist. It's a tank style dress using single fold bias tape to finish the armholes and the neckline. View B also adds a bit of drama with a center front slit. After some deliberation I decided to label the Southport as intermediate because of the more difficult techniques of adding bias facing and buttons/buttonholes. That being said, a confident beginner could definitely tackle this dress especially if they chose easier fabrics and followed the sewalong coming to the blog in a couple of weeks. Although we will talk more about this next week, suggested fabrics are lightweight woven fabrics such as cotton voile, crepe de chine, rayon challis, and lightweight linens. Pretty much you want something with some drape and movement so that the drawstring waist doesn't get bulky. The fabric that I used in View A is a really soft linen blend and View B is sewn up in a rayon challis. There will be a sewalong for the Southport the week of April 27th and there will be some inspiration posts coming next week. Here is the schedule if you would like to follow along:

Sewalong Schedule

Monday April 27th - Prepping with Markings, Staystitching, Interfacing, and Seam Finishes

Tuesday April 28th - Darts, and Neckline

Wednesday April 29th - Armholes and Buttons

Thursday April 30th - Pockets and Waistband

Friday May 1st - Slit and Hemming

I will also be posting so suggestions on fabric and ready to wear inspiration next week to gear up for the sewalong. The Southport Dress will be on sale for 25% off until the sewalong begins (so until midnight EST Sunday April 26th) with the code SOUTHPORTLAUNCH. You can purchase the Southport Dress pdf sewing pattern by clicking here or by clicking on the image on the right sidebar. Please let me know if you have any questions.