So Nice, We Had To Do It Twice|The Erica Collab

On November 4, 2019, Style Sew Me and Erica Bunker released the Erica dress pattern. I purchased it as soon as I could. I fell in love with the effortless style of it and the sleeve detail was to die for. Who doesn’t love a puffy sleeve? As with any other pattern purchase, I started thinking about when would I be able to make it. Since the holidays were right around the corner, I decided that this would be my Thanksgiving Dress. Well, it turned out to be my collaboration dress with Andrea from Andrea Naturally!

I was heading to Boston for the Thanksgiving holiday with my Erica PDF pattern all cut out and my large floral print liverpool fabric in my luggage. My mom has a sewing machine and my plans were to make my dress and wear it for Thanksgiving dinner. I mentioned my plans to Andrea and she said, let me see if I can make it happen so that we could do a collaboration. YAY!! I was so excited!! Andrea and I did a collaboration back in September and you can read all about it HERE.

We had the BEST time during this shoot. We decided to do our shoot on Thanksgiving morning. It was freezing cold out and when I left my Mom’s house it was raining. Andrea new of a spot we could shoot out of the rain, but it was still outside. We walked towards the train station and Andrea asked if we should go inside. It was the best idea ever! It was so much warmer inside, plus it made for some really cool photos.

I purchased this fabric while in LA over the summer. Such a great deal for only $3 a yard. They do not have an online store, but I’ve purchased some great livepool from LA Finch Fabrics. They always have great sales too.

Construction Tips

As I mentioned above, I was not home when I made this dress and did not have access to my serger. Good thing knit doesn’t fray. The pattern called for stay tape for the shoulder seams, but I didn’t have any on hand. I headed to my local Walmart and purchased knit interfacing and HeatnBond SoftStretch Ultra Iron-On Adhesive. I honestly didn’t know which would work best so, I reached out to Erica herself. Yes, I slid into her DMs on her Instagram and she responded right away! She said either would work find since all you wanted to do was stabilize the seam. I went with the HeatBond since it was already cut.

When I cut out the pattern and fabric, I went with an XL because I was scared to cut it too small and mess up the dress. After it was all sewn together, I thought it was too large. I went ahead and sewed another 1/4 inch on each side starting from the sleeve all the way down the side seams. I also cut the dress at a medium height because I’m so short. This caused the side slits to be too small so I made them longer, and boy did I make them longer.

Now on to my super secret tip. I used the HeatNBond all along the slit seams and my hem. This was the best idea since I didn’t have my serger. The HeatNBond held my hem perfectly in place and also gave it just a little bit of structure. It was perfect! Once I had the seams bonded into place I then went in a sewed the seam down.

What more can I say about the Erica that I haven’t already said? This pattern is very simple to put together. OK, I’ll be honest, the neck part tripped me up a little bit. I read in the instructions several times and then realized Erica has a sew along view which you can find HERE. Once I watched the video, I was good to go.

Can I tell you this collab almost didn’t happen? First of all, it was total last minute. We did not have this planned at all, initially. Then it didn’t almost happen because Andrea had other commitments. She was working on items to sell at a craft fair she’s vending at and needed to tend to that. Andrea pulled through and I’m so glad she did. It’s always so cool when you get to hang with your IG friends in real life. I can’t wait for our next collab. You can read all about Andrea’s Erica dress and see more of her photo’s HERE. You can also follow her on Instagram HERE.

What did you think of our collab? Have you picked up the Erica dress yet? Make sure you do because it’s definitely a winner. Eryn from Style Sew Me and Erica Bunker make an amazing team. Wonder if we should expect more?

Until Next time,

Johanna

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