Heat Wave (Ogden Cami Dress)

It has been so. hot. here in Carolina, y\’all. I don\’t know about you, but I prefer a crisp 50 and breezy to 95 degrees, 95% humidity, and swarms of mosquitoes. (I remind myself of this every time I think \”Charleston is so pretty, I could totally live there.\” I could not really live any further south, honestly.) In the South, in the summer, seersucker is the only thing to wear. Last summer I shared this blue seersucker vintage number, and just a few weeks ago this similar, vintage-inspired pink version, and I actually have another blue diy coming up soon and some yellow seersucker in the sewing queue now. Lined with a lightweight cotton lawn, there\’s nothing cooler.

This dress was made with the leftover from my Orla and inspired by this one from one of my favorite online shops, Tuckernuck, which I realized was basically just an Ogden cami with a bottom ruffle. Actually, mine is better (in my opinion) since the back is high enough to wear a bra! This dress is fully lined and the front and back neckline is finished with bias binding. It\’s the perfect dress for these sweltering summers, and paired with a pair of Jacks and a cute straw bag, it\’s sweet and looks pretty put-together even if you feel like you are about to melt into a puddle! My bag is from this tiny etsy shop and I mentioned on instagram stories that I pre-ordered this bag in March and it took absolutely forever to get here. I originally saw the bag on Gal Meets Glam, which has a huge following, so I suspect the store got a little swamped with orders. It was so worth the wait though–the bag is gorgeous and very high-quality, and even better, proceeds go to help Thai children get an education. I can\’t link directly to this style because it\’s not available right now, but it\’s called the Sara market tote, and I assume they\’ll restock eventually!

Back to the dress: I used sort of a mish-mash of construction so I thought I\’d walk you through how I did it. First, I cut front and back cami pieces in both seersucker and lightweight white cotton lawn and assembled a white cami body and a seersucker cami body. Insert one cami body into the other, right sides together, and sew the underarm seams, then clip, turn, and press. You should have finished side seams on lining and exterior and your underarms neatly finished, but front and beck neck raw. Baste front neckline of lining and exterior together, wrong sides together, and do the same on the back. Then use double fold bias tape to finish the front neckline and back neckline, encasing the basted-together raw edges and continuing the bias tape up off the front neck to become the straps. (Side note: I measured along the strap and made it the same length as the original pattern piece before attaching the same piece of bias to the back neckline, but this was a real pain and what you should do is either make sweet tie straps (do the above on front and back and leave your bias strips free at the top, tie bias straps in a cute bow) or use bra strap sliders (i.e. Butterick 6453). That will be simpler.) To add the bottom ruffle, just cut a rectangle slightly wider (like, 1.5x–y\’all my tutorials are horrible, I never measure anything!) than the hem of the Ogden Cami, and about a foot long, gather it to fit, stitch it on, and hem to your desired length! So simple.

Are you sick of summer yet or are you savoring every pool day? Are you sick of Ogdens yet or are you loving all the hacks? What are you over and what are you into right now?

xoxo,