We are thrilled to announce our craft along for 2023! In fact, it’s not exactly a craft along…it’s a SEW Along and we are going to sew a dress! We’re calling it the LARS DRESS Sew Along! It’s based on a pattern we developed, The Lars Dress obvi, and we’re going to make it…TOGETHER!
If you’re new here, let me explain. Our Craft Along started in 2021 with the making of our Nativity set with some super fabulous guests then the heirloom photo ornaments in 2022 with some more fabulous guests. This year we thought long and hard about what we could do to mix things up while also doing something that we know you would like to make. And boom. The Lars Dress was born. And we cannot wait to get started!
Why a Lars Dress?
Over the years any time we make a piece of clothing we see the comments “oh, I wish I could make my own dress too” or “I wish I knew how to sew”. As I’ve mentioned before, I exclusively wear dresses and I thought it would be fun to develop our own pattern (in my dreams it’s way more!) and make some out of our own fabrics. We’ve been working hard over the last few months to make it happen and hope you are ready to join in! A Sew Along is only as fun as we all make it.
What’s a Sew Along?
In this sew along we will all be making the Lars Dress over the course of 4 weeks starting from now. This first week we collect materials, while the rest of the weeks will be spent working on the elements of the dress, which will include video instructions released each week. In one month you will have a completed dress!
Who is the sew along for?
We designed the dress to appeal to everyone–beginners included. The pattern includes thorough written instructions (with photos!), size charts, pattern layout, and a glossary of terms. We also will be sharing YouTube videos showing the process of sewing the dress start to finish, so it everyone should feel comfortable joining in even if you have no prior experience. It was very important to us that this sew along not be just for people who already know how to sew. The House That Lars Built tackles a number of crafts and sewing is one of them. Please don’t feel like you need to be a hard core crafter/sewer/anything! This is meant for you! It’s meant to be a community experience.
What do I need?
Good question! Here are all the specifics:
Lars Dress
Difficulty:
BeginnerTime:
7-10 hoursMaterials
Instructions
Instructions will be sent alongside the PDF pattern!
All about the Lars Dress
There are a few things that I look for in a dress and that were very important for the Lars dress:
- A puffy sleeve (“the puffiest in the world”–IYKYK)
- Loosey goosey. Honestly, I started wearing loosey goosey dresses a few years ago and it’s really hard to go back to waist lines. Life is better without them. You can quote me on that! (Of course you can belt it up too 😉
- Pockets. Why do I even need to put in a case about this?! Yet it’s still surprising the amount of dresses without pockets. EVERY DRESS DESERVES POCKETS!
- A dress that would showcase a pretty pattern. We really wanted to show off our new patterns and needed a dress that could complement that.
Variations of the dress:
Lars Sew Along Structure
The Lars Sew Along will take place over the next four months. Of course, you are welcome to make the dress whenever, but the community part is now! Here’s how it will be broken up:
Week 1: Gather pattern, fabric, supplies (see above for complete list)
Week 2: Sleeve placket
Week 3: Construction, pockets, & keyhole section
Week 4: Neckline & sleeve binding & hem section
Where is the Lars Sew Along?
As you see, the announcement and information about the Sew Along is right here. Bookmark this for any questions you have about the actual logistics. Next week, September 13th, we will be releasing a new blog post with the tutorial for the dress. Each week that blog post will be updated with a new YouTube video showing how to make the dress. Any questions you have, leave them in the comments here on the blog or on Instagram. We will gather them and include them on the tutorial post. We will be posting some fun videos on Instagram more as encouragement :).
Lars Fabrics
We’ve been developing a large library of fabrics over the past many years and have finally started providing the option to buy them. You can find them all in our shop here. Spoonflower has a ton of different fabric types depending on your project. For this dress I used their cotton lawn because I wanted a light dress to wear over the summer, but as we near fall/winter, you could go with their signature cotton or organic cotton or even their sateen, which is really beautiful. Here are some mock-ups of the dress based on some of our fabrics. Look at those contrasting trims!
As you know, we love a bold, colorful dress 🙂
Giving back
Every year we like to focus on a charity component to the craft along. With so many people involved it seems like the perfect time to give back! Like the previous two years, we are giving to Nest, a non-profit that focuses on women in the hand-worker economy. They are a terrific organization that has really changed the game of hand craft around the world in three ways:
- Advancing Gender Equity By Celebrating Women’s Work
- Driving Diversity & Inclusion in the Makers Movement
- Expanding Economic Opportunity through Craft
A portion of every sale of the Lars Dress pattern will go straight to Nest. You are also welcome to donate directly here.
Lars Team
We were very lucky to have Caroline Newman on our team this summer who developed the pattern for us. She did a phenomenal job! Thank you, Caroline! She’s also going to be leading us through the instructions on the Youtube videos. She’s definitely our sewing expert! Jenny Bandley on our team made this whole thing happen–thank you Jenny! She was instrumental in keeping us on track, making sure instructions worked out well, and setting everything in order. She’s THE BEST! And I (Brittany here!) did the creative directing. It’s been awhile since I’ve made a garment so I’m excited to make one along with everyone! In fact, everyone on our team is making a dress for it. Stay tuned for what fabrics we chose!
#LarsDress #LarsSewAlong
The fun part about doing a sew along is seeing everyone working on it! If you are joining in, please share your work either on Instagram stories or a post or reel and tag us with #LarsDress and/or #LarsSewAlong.
Ok! I think that’s it! Please drop a comment if you have a question/comment and we’ll start compiling an FAQ for next week’s tutorial post. We can’t wait to make this dress with you!
See you next week for step 1!