My Zero Waste Pride Dress

by Sew Like Romy

This is a long overdue blogpost for one of the most amazing and meaningful dresses I’ve made. I made this dress last year for Pride month but I never had a chance to blog about it. So here I am a year later and I’m going to tell you all about it.

This brilliant fabric had been sitting in my stash waiting to come to life. I absolutely love all colours so it’s no surprise I owned this, but when I kept going around in circles trying to find the right pattern to use my sweet husband came in with the save. It was the month before Pride month and we we’re talking about getting a flag for our house and then in an instant he said “why don’t you make a pride dress”. We were in the deep throws of a rough year and it just made me smile ear to ear. It was a done deal.

After searching my patterns I landed on Birgitta Helmersson’s zero waste dress. I had this pattern before she released version two, which I believe is a larger size range. So I made the size one and still had an ample amount of room. The construction of this dress doesn’t come with pattern pieces but rather instructions on how to transfer markings for each piece directly onto your fabric. This was a little confusing for me since the fabric I was using wasn’t 57”, it was 44”. So I had to do a little more math to work out how to do my pieces. I found the pattern confusing overall just because it’s so different to regular patterns we use day to day. It really is zero waste and everything is so thoughtfully put together but my brain was not having it. I eventually got there in the end but boy did that require some work. Funny how you can become so accustomed to a certain way and not even realise until you’re doing it another way.

I made hack number 2 that can be found in the instructions. This version has no pockets and a longer arm length with a gathered hem. Full disclosure I think It was mostly the pocket construction that had my head spinning. Especially since I was doing the hack that was meant to be pocketless. If you intend to try this dress make sure you use the right width of fabric. I think that makes a world of difference. I also think using some interfacing for the placket also helps alleviate some strain. Aside from that, the rest of the pattern is pretty straight forward.

The fabric used was from Kaffe Fassett’s woven stripe collection which is really hard to come by now. I have more of it in my stash and now that I know how rare it is I’m almost scared to use it. Once again, another funny quirk to sewing. You love a fabric so much that you can’t bring yourself to use it. Makes me giggle typing it.

Overall I love this dress and I love Pride month. Growing up in Sydney I remember the huge celebrations in the city and how fun it is to celebrate. So making this during a pandemic felt like the least I could do since we weren’t home to celebrate how we know how. I hope you love this dress as much as I do and I also hope you all have a lovely Pride month this year!